UC-NRLF 


u 


m 


OF    THE 


Name  of  Book  and  Volume, 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

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http://www.archive.org/details/artinnetherlandsOOtainrich 


TAINE^S    V^^ORKS, 


/.  A    TOUR    THROUGH  THE   PYRE- 
NEES. 
//.   THE  PHHOSOPHY  OF  ART. 
HI.  NOTES  ON  ENGLAND. 
IV.  ENGLISH  LITER  A  TURE.     2  vols. 
V.   ON  INTELLIGENCE. 
VI.   THE  PHILOSOPHYOF  GREEK  ART. 
VH.   THE  PHIL  OS  O  PHY  OF  AR  TIN  THE 
NE  THERLANDS. 
VIIL   THE  IDEAL  IN  ART. 
IX.  ITALY,  ROME  AND  NAPLES. 
X.  ITALY,  FLORENCE  AND  VENICE. 

Henry  Holt  &  Co.,  Publishers, 

25  Bond  Street,  New  York. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 


ART 


IN   THE 


NETHEELAKDS 


BY 


H.    TAI^E 


TRANSLATED  BY 


J.    DURAND 


NEW  YORK 
HENRY   HOLT   AND    COMPANY 

1874. 


rj4 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1870,  by 

LEYPOLDT  &  HOLT, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 


John  F.  Trow  &  Son,  Printers, 
205-213  East  12TH  St.,  New  York. 


TO 


GUSTAVE   FLAUBERT 


7C.S\ 


PAET  I. 
PERMANENT  CAUSES, 


Of  ( '.nif  r  v.'V. 


THE    PHILOSOPHY   OF  APT   IN 
THE  NETHEPLAJSTDS. 


During  the  last  three  years  I  have  explained  to 
you  the  history  of  painting  in  Italy ;  this  year  I 
propose  to  set  before  you  the  history  of  painting  in 
the  Netherlands. 

Two  groups  of  mankind  have  been,  and  still  are, 
the  principal  factors  of  modern  civilization ;  on  the 
one  hand,  the  Latin  or  Latinized  people — the  Italians, 
French,  Spanish  and  Portuguese,  and  on  the  other, 
the  Germanic  people — the  Belgians,  Dutch,  Germans, 
Danes,  Swedes,  Norwegians,  English,  Scotch  and 
Americans.  In  the  Latin  group  the  Italians  are  unde- 
niably the  best  artists  ;  in  the  Germanic  group  they 
are  indisputably  the  Flemings  and  the  Dutch.  In 
studying,  accordingly,  the  history  of  art  along  with 
these  two  races,  we  are  studying  the  history  of  mod- 
ern art  with  its  greatest  and  most  opposite  repre- 
sentatives. 


12  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AUT 

A  product  so  vast  and  varied,  an  art  enduring 
nearly  four  hundred  years,  an  art  enumerating  so 
many  masterpieces  and  imprinting  on  all  its  works 
an  original  and  common  character,  is  a  national  prod- 
uct; it  is  consequently  intimately  associated  with 
the  national  life,  and  is  rooted  in  the  national  charac- 
ter itself.  It  is  a  flowering  long  and  deeply  matured 
through  a  development  of  vitality  conformably  to  the 
acquired  structure  and  -primitive  organization  of  the 
plant.  According  to  our  method  we  shall  first  study 
the  innate  and  preliminary  history  which  explains 
the  outward  and  final  history.  I  shall  first  show  you 
the  seed,  that  is  to  say  the  race,  with  its  fundamental 
and  indelible  qualities,  those  that  persist  through  all 
circumstances  and  in  all  climates  ;  and  next  the  plant, 
that  is  to  say  the  people  itself,  with  its  original  qual- 
ities expanded  or  contracted,  in  any  case  grafted  on 
and  transformed  by  its  surroundings  and  its  his- 
tory ;  and  finally  the  flower,  that  is  to  say  the  art, 
and  especially  painting,  in  which  this  development 
culminates. 


/i\    THE  NETHERLANDS.  13 


I. 


The  men  who  inhabit  the  Xetherlands  belong,  for 
the  most  part,  to  that  race  which  invaded  the  Roman 
empire  in.  the  fifth  century,  and  which  then,  for  the 
first  time,  claimed  its  place  in  broad  sunshine  along- 
side of  Latin  nations.  In  certain  countries,  in  Gaul, 
Spain  and  Italy,  it  simply  brought  chiefs  and  a 
supplement  to  the  primitive  population.  In  other 
countries,  as  in  England  and  the  N^etherlands,  it  drove 
out,  destroyed  and  replaced  the  ancient  inhabitants, 
its  blood,  pure,  or  almost  pure,  still  flowing  in  the 
veins  of  the  men  now  occupying  the  same  soil. 
Throughout  the  middle  ages  the  ^Netherlands  Avere 
called  Low  Germany.  The  Belgic  and  Dutch  lan- 
guages are  dialects  of  the  German,  and,  except  in 
the  Walloon  district,  where  a  corrupt  French  is 
spoken,  they  form  the  popular  idiom  of  the  whole 
country. 

Let  us  consider  the  common  characteristics  of  the 
Germanic  race,  and  the  differences  by  which  it  is 
opposed   to  the  Latin  race.      Physically,  we  have 


\ 


14  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

a  whiter  and  softer  skin,  generally  speaking,  blue 
eyes,  often  of  a  porcelain  or  pale  hue,  paler  as  you 
approach  the  north,  and  sometimes  glassy  in  Hol- 
land ;  hair  of  a  flaxy  blonde,  and,  with  children,  al- 
most white  ;  the  ancient  Romans  early  wondered  at 
it,  and  stated  that  infants  in  Germany  had  the  hair 
of  old  men.  The  complexion  is  of  a  charming  rose, 
infinitely  delicate  among  young  girls,  and  lively 
and  tinged  w^ith  vermilion  among  young  men,  and 
sometimes  even  among  the  aged  ;  ordinarily,  how- 
ever, among  the  laboring  classes  and  in  advanced 
life  I  have  found  it  wan,  turnip-hued,  and  in  Hol- 
land cheese-colored,  and  mouldy  cheese  at  that. 
The  body  is  generally  large,  but  thick-set  or  burly, 
heavy  and  inelegant.  In  a  similar  manner  the 
features  are  apt  to  be  irregular,  especially  in  Hol- 
land, where  they  are  flabby,  with  projecting  cheek- 
bones and  strongly-marked  jaws.  They  lack,  in 
short,  sculptural  nobleness  and  delicacy.  You  will 
rarely  find  the  features  regular"  like  the  numerous 
pretty  faces  of  Toulouse  and  Bordeaux,  or  like  the 
spirited  and  handsome  heads  which  abound  in  the 
vicinity  of  Rome   and   Florence.     You   will   much 


IX  TIW  NETHERLANDS.  15 

ofLener  find  exaggerated  features,  incoherent  combi- 
nations of  form  and  tones,  curious  fleshy  protuberan- 
ces, so  many  natural  caricatures.  Taking  tliem  foi' 
works  of  art,  living  forms  testify  to  a  clumsy  and 
fantastic  liand  through  their  more  incorrect  and 
weaker  drawing. 

Observe  now  this  body  in  action,  and  you  will 
find  its  animal  faculties  and  necessities  of  a  grosser 
khid  than  among  the  Latins ;  matter  and  mass  seem 
to  predominate  over  motion  and  spirit :  it  is  voracious 
and  even  carnivorous.  Compare  the  appetite  of  an 
Englishman,  or  even  a  Hollander,  with  that  of  a 
Frenchman  or  an  Italian  ;  those  among  you  who 
have  visited  the  country  can  call  to  mind  the  public 
dinner  tables  and  the  quantities  of  food,  especially 
meat,  tranquilly  swallow^ed  several  times  a  day  by 
a  citizen  of  London,  Rotterdam  or  Antwerp.  Li 
English  novels  people  are  always  lunching — the  most 
sentimental  heroine,  at  the  end  of  the  third  volume, 
having  consumed  an  infinite  number  of  buttered  muf- 
fins, cups  of  tea,  bits  of  chicken,  and  sand\viches. 
The  climate  contributes  to  this  ;  in  the  fogs  of  the 
north,   people  could  not  sustain  themselves,  like  a 


\ 


16  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ABT 

peasant  of  the  Latin  race,  on  a  bowl  of  soup  or  a 
piece  of  bread  flavored  with  garlic,  or  on  a  plate  of 
macaroni.  For  the  same  reason  the  German  is  fond 
of  potent  beverages.  Tacitus  had  already  remarked 
it,  and  Ludovico  Guiccardini,  an  eye-witness  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  whom  I  shall  repeatedly  quote, 
says,  in  speaking  of  the  Belgians  and  Hollanders  : 
"  Almost  all  are  addicted  to  drunkenness,  which  vice, 
with  them,  is  a  passion.  They  fill  themselves  with 
liquor  every  evening,  and  even  at  day-break."  At 
the  present  time,  in  America  and  in  Europe,  in  most 
of  the  German  countries,  intemperance  is  the  national 
bane  ;  half  of  the  suicides  and  mental  maladies  flow 
from  it.  Even  among  the  reflective  and  those  in 
good  circumstances  the  fondness  for  liquor  is  very 
great :  in  Germany  and  in  England  it  is  not  regarded 
as  disreputable  for  a  well-educated  man  to  rise  from 
the  table  partially  intoxicated  ;  now  and  then  he  be- 
comes completely  drunk.  With  us,  on  the  contrary, 
it  is  a  reproach,  in  Italy  a  disgrace,  and  in  Spain, 
during  the  last  centur}^,  the  name  of  drunkard  was  an 
insult  which  a  duel  could  not  wholly  wipe  out,  provok- 
ing, as  it  often  did,  the  dagger.     There  is  nothing  of 


/A"  THE  NETUERLANDS.  17 

this  sort  in  German  countries  ;  hence  the  great  num- 
ber and  frequency  of  breweries  and  the  innumerable 
sliops  for  the  retailhig  of  ardent  spirits  and  different 
kinds  of  beer,  all  bearing  witness  to  the  public  taste. 
Enter,  in  Amsterdam,  one  of  these  little  shops,  gar- 
nished with  polished  casks,  where  glass  after  glass  is 
swallowed  of  wliite,  yellow,  green  and  brown  brandy, 
strengthened  with  jDepper  and  pimento.  Place  your- 
self at  nine  o'clock  in 'the  evening  in  a  Brussels 
brewery,  near  a  dark  wooden  table  around  which 
the  hawkers  of  crabs,  salted  rolls  and  hard-boiled 
eggs  circulate ;  ol)serve  the  people  quietly  seated 
there,  each  one  intent  on  himself,  sometimes  in 
couples,  but  generally  silent,  smoking,  eating,  and 
drinking  bumpers  of  beer  which  they  now  and  then 
warm  up  with  a  glass  of  spirits  ;  you  can  understand 
sympathetically  the  strong  sensation  of  heat  and 
animal  plenitude  which  they  feel  in  their  sj^eechless 
solitude,  in  proportion  as  superabundant  solid  and 
liquid  nourishment  renews  in  them  the  living  sub- 
stance, and  as  the  whole  body  partakes  in  the  grati- 
fication of  the  satisfied  stomach. 

One  point  more   of  their  exterior  remains   to  be 


18  .  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

shown  wliich  especially  strikes  people  of  southern 
climes,  and  that  is  the  sluggishness  and  torpidity  of 
their  impressions  and  movements.  An  umbrella- 
dealer  of  Amsterdam,  a  Toulousian,  almost  threw 
himself  into  my  arms  on  hearing  me  speak  French, 
and  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  I  had  to  listen  to  the 
story  of  his  griefs.  To  a  temperament  as  lively  as 
his,  the  people  of  tliis  country  were  intolerable — 
"  stiff,  frigid,  with  no  sensibility  or  sentiment,  dull 
and  insipid,  perfect  turnips,  sir,  perfect  turnips  !  " 
And,  truly,  his  cackling  and  expansiveness  formed  a 
contrast.  It  seems,  on  addressing  them,  as  if  they 
did  not  quite  comprehend  you,  or  that  they  required 
time  to  set  their  expressional  machinery  agoing ; 
the  keeper  of  a  gallery,  a  household  servant,  stands 
gaping  at  you  a  minute  before  answering.  In  coffee- 
houses and  in  public  conveyances  the  phlegm  and 
passivity  of  their  features  are  remarkable ;  they  do 
not  feel  as  we  do  the  necessity  of  moving  about 
and  talking  —  they  remain  stationary  for  hours, 
absorbed  with  their  own  ideas  or  with  their  pipes. 
At  evening  parties  in  Amsterdam,  ladies,  bedecked 
like  shrines,  and  motionless  on  their  chairs,  seem  to 


IN   THE  NETHERLANDS.  19 

be  statues.  In  Belgium,  in  Germany  and  in  Eng- 
land, the  faces  of  the  peasantry  seem  to  us  inani- 
mate, devitalized  or  benumbed.  A  friend,  return- 
ing from  Berlin,  remarked  to  me,  "  those  people  all 
have  dead  eyes."  Even  the  young  girls  look  simple 
and  drowsy.  Many  a  time  have  I  paused  betbre  a 
shop-window  to  contemplate  some  rosy,  placid  and 
candid  face,  a  mediaeval  madonna  making  up  the 
fashions.  It  is  the  very  reverse  of  this  in  our  land 
and  in  Italy,  where  the  grisette's  eyes  seem  to  be 
gossiping  with  the  chairs  for  lack  of  something 
better,  and  where  a  thought,  the  moment  it  is  born, 
translates  itself  into  gesture.  In  Germanic  lands 
the  channels  of  sensation  and  expression  seem  to  be 
obstructed ;  delicacy,  impulsiveness,  and  readiness 
of  action  appear  impossible ;  a  southerner  has  to 
exclaim  at  their  awkwardness  and  lack  of  adroit- 
uess,  and  this  was  the  deliberate  opinion  of  our 
French  in  the  wars  of  the  Revolution  and  the 
Empire.  In  this  respect  the  toilette  and  deportment 
afford  us  the  best  indications,  especially  if  we  take 
the  middle  and  lower  classes  of  society.  Compare 
the  grisettes  of  Rome,  Bologna,  Paris  and  Toulouse 


20  THE  PHILOSOPHT  OF  ART 

with  the  huge  mechanical  dolls  to  be  seen  at  Hamp- 
ton Court  on  Sundays,  starched  and  stiff  in  their 
blue  scarfs,  staring  silks  and  gilded  belts,  and  other 
details  of  a  pompous  extravagance.  I  remember  at 
this  moment  two  fetes — one  at  Amsterdam  to  which 
the  rich  peasant  women  of  Friesland  flocked,  their 
heads  decked  with  a  fluted  cap  and  a  hat  like  a  cab- 
riolet rearing  itself  convulsively,  whilst  on  the  tem- 
ples and  brow  were  two  gold  plates,  a  gold  pediment 
and  gold  corkscrews  surrounding  a  wan  and  dis- 
torted countenance  ;  the  other  at  Fribourg,  in  Bris- 
gau,  where,  planted  on  their  solid  feet,  the  village 
women  stood  vaguely  staring  at  us  and  exhibiting 
themselves  in  their  national  costume — so  many  black, 
red,  purple  and  green  skirts,  Avith  stiff  folds  like 
those  of  gothic  statues,  a  swollen  corsage  front  and 
rear,  massive  sleeves  puffed  out  like  legs  of  mutton, 
forms  girded  close  under  the  armpits,  dull,  yellow 
hair  twisted  into  a  knot  and  drawn  towards  the  top 
of  the  head,  chignons  in  a  net  of  gold  and  silver 
embroidery,  and  above  this  a  man's  hat,  like  an 
orange-colored  pipe,  the  heteroclite  crown  of  a  body 
seemingly   hewn  out  with  a  cleaver,   and  vaguely 


ZiY  THE  NErHERLAI{D8.  21 

suggesting  a  painted  sign-post.  In  brief,  the  human 
animal  of  this  race  is  more  passive  and  more  gross 
than  the  other.  One  is  tempted  to  regard  him  as 
inferior  on  comparing  him  witli  the  Italian  or  south- 
ern Frenchman,  so  temperate,  so  quick  intellectually, 
who  is  naturally  apt  in  expression,  in  chatting  and 
in  pantomine,  possessing  taste  and  attaining  to 
elegance,  and  who,  without  effort,  like  the  Proven- 
9als  of  the  twelfth,  and  the  Florentines  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  become  cultivated,  civilized  and 
accomplished  at  the  first  effort. 

We  must  not  confine  ourselves  to  this  first  glance 
which  presents  only  one  phase  of  things  ;  there  is 
another  associated  with  it,  as  liglit  accompanies 
dark.  This  finesse,  and  this  precocity,  natural  to 
the  Latin  families,  leads  to  many  bad  results.  It 
is  the  som'ce  of  their  craving  for  agreeable  sensa- 
tions; they  are  exacting  in  their  comforts;  tliey 
demand  many  and  varied  pleasures,  whether  coarse 
or  refined,  an  entertaining  conversation,  tlie  ameni- 
ties of  politeness,  the  satisfactions  of  vanity,  the 
sensualities  of  love,  the  delights  of  novelty  and  of 
accident,  the   harmonious    symmetries  of  form  and 


22  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

of  plirase ;  they  readily  develope  into  rhetoricians, 
dilettanti,  epicureans,  voluptuaries,  libertines,  gal- 
lants and  worldliiiixs.  It  is  indeed  throug;!!  these 
vices  that  their  civilization  becomes  corrupt  or  ends ; 
you  encounter  them  in  the  decline  of  ancient  Greece 
and  Kome,  in  Provenye  of  the  twelfth,  in  Italy  of 
the  sixteenth,  in  Spain  of  the  seventeenth,  and  in 
France  of  the  eighteenth  centuries.  Tlieir  more 
quickly  cultivated  temperament  bears  them  more 
speedily  on  to  subtleties.  Coveting  keen  emotions, 
they  cannot  be  happy  with  moderate  ones :  they 
are  like  people  wdio,  accustomed  to  eating  oranges, 
throw  away  carrots  and  turnips ;  and  yet  it  is 
carrots  and  turnips,  and  other  equally  insipid  vege- 
tables, which  make  up  our  ordinary  diet.  It  is  in 
Italy  that  a  noble  lady  exclaims,  on  partaking  of  a 
delicious  ice-cream,  "  What  a  pity  there  is  no  sin  in 
it !  "  In  France  a  noble  lord  remarks,  speaking  of 
a  diplomatic  roue,  "Who  wouldn't  admire  him,  he  is 
so  wicked  ! "  In  other  directions  their  vivacity  of 
impression  and  promptness  of  action  render  them 
improvisators;  they  are  so  quickly  and  so  deeply 
excited  by  a  crisis   as   to  forget    duty  and  reason, 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  23 

resorting  to  daggers  in  Italy  and  Spain,  and  to  pis- 
tols in  France ;  showing  by  tkis  that  they  are  only 
moderately  capable  of  biding  their  time,  of  self-sub- 
ordination, and  of  maintaining  order.  Success  in 
life  depends  on  knowing  how  to  be  patient,  how  to 
endure  drudgery,  how  to  unmake  and  remake,  how 
to  recommence  and  continue  without  allowing  the 
tide  of  anger  or  the  flight  of  the  imagination  to 
arrest  or  divert  the  daily  effort.  In  fine,  if  we  com- 
pare their  faculties  with  the  world  as  it  runs,  it  is 
too  mechanical,  too  rude,  and  too  monotonous  for 
them,  and  they  too  lively,  too  delicate,  and  too 
brilliant  for  it.  Always  after  the  lapse  of  centuries 
this  discord  shows  itself  in  their  civilization;  they 
demand  too  much  of  things,  and,  through  their  mis- 
conduct, fail  even  to  reach  that  which  things  might 
confer  on  them. 

Suppress,  now,  these  fortunate  endow^ments,  and, 
on  the  dark  side,  these  mischievous  tendencies, — im- 
agine on  the  slow  and  substantial  body  of  the  Ger- 
man a  well-organized  brain,  a  sound  mind,  and  trace 
the  effects.  With  less  lively  impressions  a  man  thus 
fashioned  will  be  more  collected  and  more  thought- 


24:  THE  PHIL080PRT  OF  ART 

fill ;  less  solicitous  of  agreeable  emotions,  he  can,  mth- 
out  weariness,  do  disagreeable  things.  His  senses 
being  blunter,  he  prefers  depth  to  form,  and  truth 
within  to  show  without.  As  he  is  less  impulsive  he 
is  less  subject  to  impatience  and  to  unreasonable  out- 
bursts ;  he  has  an  idea  of  sequence,  and  can  persist 
in  enterprises  the  issue  of  which  is  of  long  achieve- 
ment. Finally,  with  him  the  understanding  is  the 
better  master,  because  outward  temptations  are 
weaker  and  inward  explosions  rarer;  reason  governs 
better  where  there  is  less  inward  rebellion  and  less 
outw^ard  attack.  Consider,  in  effect,  the  Germanic 
people  of  the  present  day  and  throughout  history. 
They  are,  primarily,  the  great  laborers  of  the  world  ; 
in  matters  of  intellect  none  equal  them  ;  in  erudition, 
in  philosophy,  in  the  most  crabbed  linguistic  studies, 
in  voluminous  editions,  dictionaries  and  other  compi- 
lations, in  researches  of  the  laboratory,  in  all  science, 
in  short,  whatever  stern  and  hard,  but  necessary  and 
preparatory  work  there  is  to  be  done,  that  is  their 
province;  patiently,  and  with  most  commendable 
self-sacrifice  they  hew  out  every  stone  that  enters  into 
the  edifice  of  modern  times.     In  material  matters  the 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  25 

English,  Americans  and  Dutch  perform  the  same  ser- 
vice. I  should  like  to  show  you  an  English  spinner 
or  cloth-dresser  at  work  ;  he  is  a  perfect  automaton, 
occupied  day  in  and  day  out  without  a  moment's 
relaxation,  and  the  tenth  hour  as  well  as  the  first. 
If  he  is  in  a  workshop  with  French  workmen,  these 
form  a  striking  contrast;  they  are  unable  to  adapt 
themselves  to  the  same  mechanical  regularity  ;  they 
are  sooner  tired  and  inattentive,  and  thus  produce 
less  at  the  end  of  the  day ;  instead  of  eighteen  hun- 
dred spools,  they  only  turn  out  twelve  hundred. 
The  farther  south  you  go  the  less  the  capacity.  A 
Proven9al  or  Italian  must  gossip,  sing  and  dance ; 
he  is  a  willing  lounger,  and  lives  as  he  can,  and  in 
this  way  easily  contents  himself  with  a  threadbare 
coat.  Indolence  there  seems  natural  and  honorable. 
A  7iohle  life,  the  laziness  of  the  man  who,  to  save  his 
honor,  lives  on  expedients,  and  sometimes  fasts,  has 
been  the  curse  of  Spain  and  Italy  for  the  last  two 
hundred  years.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  same 
epoch,  the  Fleming,  the  Hollander,  the  Englishman 
and  the  German  have  gloried  in  providing  themselves 
with   all  useful  things ;   the  instinctive  repugnance 


26  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

which  leads  an  ordinary  man  to  shun  trouble,  the 
puerile  vanity  which  leads  the  cultivated  man  to  dis- 
tinguish himself  from  the  artizan,  disappear  alongside 
of  their  good  sense  and  reason. 

This  same  reason  and  this  same  good  sense  estab- 
lish and  maintain  amongst  them  diverse  descriptioi.s 
of  social  engagements,  and  first,  the  conjugal  bond. 
You  are  aware  that  among  the  Latin  families  tins  is 
not  over  respected;  in  Italy,  Spain  and  France 
adultery  is  always  the  principal  subject  of  the  play 
and  the  romance  ;  at  all  events,  literature  in  these 
lands  always  in(;arnates  passion  in  the  hero,  and  is 
prodigal  of  sympathy  for  him  by  granting  him  all 
privileges.  In  England,  on  the  contrary,  the  novel 
is  a  picture  of  loyal  affection  and  the  laudation  of 
wedlock;  in  Germany,  gallantry  is  not  honorable, 
even  among  students.  In  Latin  countries  it  is 
excused  or  accepted,  and  even  sometimes  approved 
of.  The  matrimonial  yoke,  and  the  monotony  of  the 
household,  there  seem  galling.  Sensational  allure- 
ments penetrate  too  deeply ;  the  caprices  of  the 
imagination  there  are  too  brusque;  the  mind  creates 
for    itself    visions    of    transports    and    of    ecstatic 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS,  27 

delight,  or  at  least  a  romance  of  exciting  and 
varied  sensuality,  and  at  the  first  opportunity  tlio 
suppressed  flood  bursts  forth,  carrying  with  it  every 
barrier  of  duty  and  of  law.  Consider  Spain,  Italy 
and  France  in  tlie  sixteenth  century ;  read  the  tales 
of  Bandello,  the  comedies  of  Lope  de  Vega,  the  nar- 
ratives of  Brantome,  and  listen  for  a  moment  to  the 
comment  of  Guiccardini,  a  contemporary,  on  the 
social  habits  of  the  Netherlands.  "They  hold 
adultery  in  horror  .  .  .  Their  women  are  extremely 
circumspect,  and  are  consequently  allowed  much 
freedom.  They  go  out  alone  to  make  visits,  and 
even  journeys  without  evil  report;  they  are  able  to 
take  care  of  themselves.  Moreover  they  are  house- 
keepers, and  love  their  households."  Only  very 
lately,  again,  a  wealthy  and  noble  Hollander  named 
to  me  several  young  ladies  belonging  to  his  family 
who  had  no  desire  to  see  the  Great  Exposition,  and 
who  remained  at  home  whilst  their  husbands  and 
brothers  visited  Paris.  A  disposition  so  calm  and 
so  sedentary  diffuses  much  happiness  throughout 
domestic  life ;  in  the  repose  of  curiosity  and  of  de- 
sire the  ascendancy  of  pure  ideas  is  much  greater ; 


28  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

the  constant  presence  of  the  same  person  not  being 
wearisome,  the  memory  of  plighted  faith,  the  senti- 
ment of  duty  and  of  self-respect  easily  prevails 
agahist  temptations  which  elsewhere  triumph  be- 
cause they  are  elsewhere  more  powerful.  I  can  say 
as  much  of  other  descriptions  of  association,  and  es- 
pecially of  the  free  assemblage.  This,  practically,  is 
a  very  difficult  thing.  To  make  the  machine  Y>^ork 
regularly,  without  obstruction,  those  who  compose 
it  must  have  calm  nerves  and  be  governed  by  the 
end  in  view.  One  is  expected  to  be  patient  in  a 
'meeting,'  to  allow  himself  to  be  contradicted  and 
even  vilified,  await  his  turn  for  speaking,  reply 
with  moderation,  and  submit  twenty  times  in  suc- 
cession to  the  same  arojument  enlivened  with  ii inures 
and  documentary  facts.  It  will  not  answer  to  fling 
aside  the  newspaper  the  moment  its  political  interest 
flags,  nor  take  up  politics  for  the  pleasure  of  discus- 
sion and  speech-making,  nor  excite  insurrections 
against  officials  the  moment  they  become  distasteful, 
which  is  the  fashion  in  Spain  and  elsewhere.  You 
yourselves  have  some  knowledge  of  a  country  where 
the  government   has   been   overthrown  because  in 


/lY  THE  NETHERLANDS^.  29 

active  and  because   the   nation  felt  ennui.     Anion 


o 


Germanic  populations,  people  meet  together  not  to 
talk  but  to  act ;  politics  is  a  matter  lo  be  Avisely 
managed,  they  bring  to  bear  on  it  the  spirit  of  busi- 
ness ;  speech  is  simply  a  means,  while  the  effect, 
however  remote,  is  the  end  in  view.  They  subor- 
dinate themselves  to  this  end,  and  are  full  of  defer- 
ence for  the  persons  who  represent  it.  How  unique! 
Here  the  governed  respect  the  governing;  if  the 
latter  prove  objectionable  they  are  resisted,  but 
legally  and  patiently;  if  institutions  prove  defective, 
they  are  gradually  reformed  without  being  dis- 
rupted. Germanic  countries  are  the  patrimony  of 
free  parliamentary  rule.  You  see  it  established  to- 
d.-v)^  in  Sweden,  in  Norway,  in  England,  in  Belgium, 
in  Holland,  in  Prussia,  and  even  in  Austria;  the 
colonists  engaged  in  clearing  Australia  and  the 
West  of  America,  plant  it  in  their  soil,  and,  how- 
ever rude  the  new-comers  may  be,  it  prospers  at 
once,  and  is  maintained  without  difficulty.  We  find 
it  at  the  outset  in  Belgium  and  Holland  ;  the  old 
cities  of  the  Netherlands  were  republics,  and  so 
maintained  themselves  throuochout  the  middle  ages 


30  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

in  spite  of  their  feudal  suzerains.  Free  communities 
arose,  and  maintained  themselves  without  effort,  at 
once,  the  small  as  well  as  the  great,  and  in  the  great 
whole.  In  the  sixteenth  century  we  find  in  each 
city,  and  even  in  small  towns,  companies  of  arquebu- 
siers  and  rhetoricians,  of  which  more  than  two  hun- 
dred have  been  enumerated.  In  Belgium  to-day 
there  still  flourish  an  infinity  of  similar  corporations, 
societies  of  archers,  of  musicians,  of  pigeon  fanciers, 
and  for  singing  birds.  In  Holland  volunteer  asso- 
ciations of  private  individuals  minister  to  every 
requirement  of  public  charity.  To  act  in  a  body,  no 
one  person  oppressing  another,  is  a  wholly  Germanic 
talent,  and  one  which  gives  them  such  an  empire 
over  matter ;  through  patience  and  reflection  they 
conform  to  the  laws  of  physical  and  human  nature, 
and  instead  of  opposing  them  profit  by  them. 

If,  now,  from  action  we  turn  to  speculation,  that 
is  to  say  to  the  mode  of  conceiving  and  figuring 
the  world,  we  shall  find  the  same  imprint  of  this 
thoughtful  and  slightly  sensualistic  genius.  The 
Latins  show  a  decided  taste  for  the  external  and 
decorative  aspect  of  things,  for  a  pompous  display 


m  THE  NETUERLANDS.  31 

feeding  the  senses  and  vanity,  for  logical  order,  out- 
ward symmetry  and  pleasing  arrangement,  in  short, 
for  form.  The  Germanic  people,  on  the  contrary, 
have  rather  inclined  to  the  inward  order  of  things, 
to  truth  itself,  in  fact,  to  the  fundamental.  Their 
instinct  leads  them  to  avoid  being  seduced  by 
appearances,  to  remove  mystery,  to  seize  the  hidden, 
even  when  repugnant  and  sorrowful,  and  not  to 
eliminate  or  withhold  any  detail,  even  when  vulgar 
and  unsightly.  Among  the  many  products  of  this 
instinct  there  are  two  which  place  it  in  full  light 
through  the  strongly  marked  contrast  in  each  of 
form  and  substance,  and  these  are  literature  and 
religion.  The  literatures  of  Latin  populations  are 
classic  and  nearly  or  remotely  allied  to  Greek  poesy, 
Roman  eloquence,  the  Italian  renaissance,  and  the 
age  of  Louis  XIV. ;  they  refine  and  ennoble,  they 
embellish  and  prune,  they  systematize  and  give  pro- 
portion. Their  latest  masterpiece  is  the  drama  of 
Racine,  who  is  the  painter  of  princely  ways,  court 
proprieties,  social  paragons,  and  cultivated  natures; 
the  master  of  an  oratorical  style,  skilful  composi- 
tion and  literary  elegance.     The  Germanic  litera- 


32  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

tni'es,  on  tlie  contrary,  are  romantic;  their  primitive 
source  is  the  Edda  and  the  ancient  sagas  of  the 
north;  their  greatest  masterpiece  is  the  drama  of 
Shakespeare,  that  is  to  say  the  crude  and  complete 
representation  of  actual  life,  with  all  its  atrocious, 
ignoble  and  common-place  details,  its  sublime  and 
brutal  instincts,  the  entire  outgrowth  of  human 
character  displayed  before  us,  now  in  a  familiar 
style  bordering  on  the  trivial,  and  now  poetic  even 
to  lyricism,  always  independent  of  rule,  incolierent, 
excessive,  but  of  an  incomparable  force,  and  filling 
our  souls  with  the  warm  and  palpitating  passion  of 
which  it  is  the  outcry.  In  a  similar  manner  take 
religion,  and  view  it  at  the  critical  moment  when  the 
people  of  Europe  had  to  choose  their  faith,  that  is  to 
say  in  the  sixteenth  century;  those  who  have 
studied  original  documents  know  what  this  at  that 
time  meant ;  what  secret  preferences  kept  some  in 
the  ancient  faith  and  led  others  to  take  the  new  one. 
All  Latin  populations,  up  to  the  last,  remained 
Catholic;  they  were  not  willing  to  renounce  their 
intellectual  habits ;  they  remained  faithful  to  tradi- 
tion ;    they    continued   subject  to   authority;    they 


AY  THE  NETHERLANDS.  33 

were  aifecled  througli  sensuous  externalities — the 
pomp  of  worsliip,  the  imposing  system  of  the  Catho- 
lic hierarchy,  the  majestic  conception  of  Catliolic 
unity  and  Catholic  perpetuity  ;  they  attached  abso- 
lute importance  to  the  rites,  outward  works  and  visi- 
ble acts  through  which  piety  is  manifested.  Almost 
all  the  Germanic  nations,  on  the  contrary,  became 
Protestants.  If  Belgium,  which  inclined  to  the 
Reformation,  escaped,  it  was  owing  to  force  througli 
tlie  successes  of  Farnese,  the  destruction  and  flight 
of  so  many  Protestant  families,  and  to  a  special 
moral  crisis  which  you  will  find  in  the  history  of 
Rubens.  All  other  Germanic  peoples  subordinated 
outward  to  inward  worship.  They  made  salvation 
to  consist  of  a  renewal  of  the  heart  and  of  religious 
sentiment ;  they  made  the  formal  authority  of  the 
Church  yield  to  personal  convictions;  through  this 
predominance  of  the  fundamental  form  became  acces- 
sory, worship,  daily  life  and  rites  being  modified  in 
the  same  degree.  We  shall  soon  see  that  in  the 
arts  the  same  opposition  of  instincts  produced  an 
analogous  contrast  of  taste  and  style.  Meanwhile 
let  it  suffice  for  us  to  seize  the  cardinal  points  which 
2* 


34  THE  PEILOSOPHT  OF  ART 

distinguish  the  two  races.  If  the  latter,  compared 
with  the  former,  presents  a  less  sculpturesque  form, 
grosser  appetites  and  a  more  torpid  temperament, 
it  furnishes  through  tranquillity  of  nerve  and  cool- 
ness of  blood  a  stronger  hold  on  pure  reason  ;  its 
mind,  less  diverted  from  the  right  road  by  delight 
in  sensuous  attractions,  the  impetuosities  of  impulse 
and  the  illusions  of  external  beauty,  is  better  able  to 
accommodate  itself  now  to  comprehend  things  and 
now  to  direct  them. 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  35 


11. 


This  race,  thus  endowed,  has  received  various  im- 
prints, according  to  the  various  conditions  of  its 
abiding-place.  Sow  a  number  of  seeds  of  the  same 
vegetable  species  in  different  soils,  under  various 
temperatures,  and  let  them  germinate,  grow,  bear 
fruit  and  reproduce  themselves  indefinitely,  each  on 
its  own  soil,  and  each  will  adapt  itself  to  its  soil, 
producing  several  varieties  of  the  same  species  so 
much  the  more  distinct  as  the  contrast  is  greater 
between  the  diverse  climates.  Such  is  the  experience 
of  the  Germanic  race  in  the  Netherlands.  Ten  cen- 
turies of  habitation  have  done  their  work ;  the  end 
of  the  middle  ages  shows  us  that,  in  addition  to  its 
innate  character,  there  is  an  acquired  character. 

It  becomes  necessary,  therefore,  to  study  the  soil 
and  the  sky;  in  default  of  travel  take  the  next  best 
thing,  a  map.  Excepting  the  mountainous  district 
to  the  south-east,  the  Netherlands  consist  of  a  watery 
plain,  formed  out  of  the  deposits  of  three  large  rivers 
— the  Rhine,  the  Meuse  and  the  Scheldt,  besides  sev- 


36  THE  PIIILOSOPIIT  OF  ART 

eral  smaller  streams.  Add  to  this  numerous  inlets, 
ponds  and  marshes.  The  country  is  an  outflow  of 
mighty  waters,  Avdiicli,  as  tliey  reach  it,  become  slug- 
gish and  remain  stagnant  for  want  of  a  fall.  Dig  a 
liole  anywhere  and  water  comes.  Examine  the  land- 
scapes of  Van  der  Neer  and  you  will  obtain  some  idea 
of  the  vast  sluggish  streams  which,  on  approaching 
the  sea,  become  a  league  wide,  and  lie  asleep,  wal- 
lowing in  their  beds  like  some  huge,  flat,  slimy  fish, 
turbid  and  feebly  glimmering  with  scaly  reflections. 
The  plain  is  oftentimes  below  their  level,  and  is  only 
protected  by  levees  of  earth.  You  feel  as  if  some  of 
them  were  going  to  give  way ;  a  mist  is  constantly 
rising  from  their  surfaces,  and  at  night  a  dense  fog 
envelopes  all  things  in  a  bluish  humidity.  Follow 
them  down  to  the  sea,  and  here  a  second  and  more 
violent  inundation,  arising  from  the  daily  tides,  com- 
pletes the  work  of  the  flrst.  The  northern  ocean  is 
hostile  to  man.  Look  at  the  "  Estacade"  of  Ruysdael, 
and  imagine  the  frequent  tempests  casting  up  ruddy 
waves  and  monstrous  foaming  billows  on  the  low,  flat 
band  of  earth  already  half  submerged  by  the  enlarge- 
ment of  the  rivers.     A  belt  of  islands,  some  of  them 


/.Y  THE  NETHERLAJsDS.  37 

equal  to  the  half  of  a  department,  hidicates,  along 
tlie  coast,  this  choking  up  of  inland  currents  and  the 
assaults  of  the  sea — Walcheren,  North  and  South 
Be  veland,  Tholen,  Schouwen,  Yoorn,  Beierland,  Texel, 
Vlieland  and  others.  Sometimes  the  ocean  runs  up 
and  forms  inner  seus  like  that  of  Harlem,  or  deep 
gulfs  like  the  Zuyder  Zee.  If  Belgium  is  an  alluvial 
expanse,  formed  by  the  rivers,  Holland  is  simply  a 
deposit  of  mud  surrounded  by  water.  Add  to  all 
tliis  an  unpropitious  soil  and  a  rigorous  climate, 
and  you  are  tempted  to  conclude  that  the  coun- 
try was  not  made  for  man  but  for  storks  and 
beavers. 

When  the  first  Germanic  tribes  came  to  encamp 
here  it  was  still  worse.  In  the  time  of  Ca3sar  and 
Strabo  there  was  nothing  but  a  swampy  forest ; 
travellers  narrate  that  one  could  pass  from  tree  to 
tree  over  all  Holland  without  touching  the  ground. 
The  uprooted  oaks  falling  into  the  streams  formed 
rafts,  as  nowadays  on  the  Mississippi,  and  barred 
the  way  to  the  Roman  flotillas.  The  Waal,  the 
Meuse  and  the  Scheldt  annually  overflowed  their 
banks,  the  water  covering  the  flat  country  around  to 


38  THE  PHILOSOPHT  OF  ART 

a  great  distance.  Autumnal  tempests  every  year 
submerged  the  island  of  Batavia,  while  in  Holland 
the  line  of  the  coast  changed  constantly.  Rain  fell 
incessantly,  and  the  fog  was  as  impenetrable  as  in 
Russian  America  ;  daylight  lasted  only  three  or  four 
hours.  A  solid  coating  of  ice  annually  covered  the 
Rhine.  Civilization,  meanwhile,  as  the  soil  became 
cleared,  tempered  the  climate ;  the  rude  Holland  of 
that  day  possessed  the  climate  of  Norway.  Flanders, 
four  centuries  after  the  invasion,  was  still  called  "  the 
interminable  and  merciless  forest."  In  1197  the 
country  about  Waes,  now  a  garden,  remained  untilled, 
the  monks  on  it  being  besieged  by  wolves.  In  the  four- 
teenth century  droves  of  wild  horses  roamed  through 
the  forests  of  Holland.  The  sea  encroached  on  the 
land.  Ghent  was  a  seaport  in  the  ninth  century, 
Thorout,  St.  Omer  and  Bruges  in  the  twelfth  century, 
Damme  in  the  thirteenth,  and  Ecloo  in  the  fourteenth. 
On  looking  at  the  Holland  of  old  maps  we  no 
longer  recognize  it.*  Still,  at  the  present  day  its 
inhabitants  are  obliged  to  guard  the  soil  against  the 

♦Michiels,  "Histoire  de  la  Peintare  Flamaude,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  230;  and 
Schayes'  "  Les  Pays-Bas-avantet  pendant  la  domination  Romaine." 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  39 

rivers  and  the  sea.  In  Belgium  tlie  margin  of  the 
sea  is  below  the  level  of  the  water  at  high  tide,  the 
polders  or  low  spots  thus  reclaimed  displaying  vast 
argillaceous  flats,  with  a  slimy  soil  tinged  with  purple 
reflections,  between  dykes,  which,  even  in  our  days, 
sometimes  break  away.  The  danger  in  Holland  is 
still  greater,  life  there  seeming  to  be  very  precarious. 
For  thirteen  centuries  a  great  inundation  has  taken 
place,  on  an  average,  every  seven  years,  besides 
smaller  ones ;  one  hundred  thousand  persons  were 
drowned  in  1230,  eighty  thousand  in  1287,  twenty 
thousand  in  1470,  thirty  thousand  in  1570,  and  twelve 
thousand  in  1717.  Similar  disasters  occurred  in  1770, 
in  1808,  and  still  later  in  1825.  Dollart  Bay,  about 
seven  miles  wide  by  twenty  deep,  and  the  Zuyder 
Zee,  forty-four  leagues  square,  are  invasions  of  the 
sea  in  the  thirteenth  century.  In  order  to  protect 
Friesland  it  was  necessary  to  drive  three  rows  of 
piles  a  distance  of  twenty-two  leagues,  each  pile  cost- 
ing seven  florins.  To  protect  the  coast  of  Harlem 
they  had  to  build  a  dyke  of  Norway  granite  five 
miles  long  by  forty  feet  in  height,  and  which  is 
buried  two  hundred  feet  beneath  the  waves.     Am- 


40  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

sterJam,  wliicli  has  two  liuiidred  and  sixty  thousand 
inliabitaiits,  is  entirely  built  on  piles,  frequently 
thirty  feet  long.  The  foundations  of  every  town  and 
village  in  Friesland  are  artificial  constructions.  It 
is  estimated  that  seven  and  a  half  billions  of  francs 
have  been  expended  on  protective  works  between  the 
Scheldt  and  the  Dollart.  Life  has  to  be  purchased 
in  Holland.  And  when  from  Harlem  or  Amsterdam 
you  see  the  enormous  yellow  surf  beating  against 
that  narrow  strip  of  mud,  and  enclosing  it  as  far  as 
the  eye  can  reach,  it  is  evident  tliat  man,  in  casting 
this  sop  to  the  monster,  obtains  safety  at  a  low  rate.* 
Imagine,  now,  on  this  quagmire,  the  ancient  Ger- 
manic tribes,  so  many  fishers  and  hunters  roaming 
about  in  hide  boats  and  clad  in  seal-skin  tunics,  and 
estimate  if  you  can  the  effort  those  barbarians  were 
forced  to  make  in  order  to  create  a  habitable  soil 
and  transform  themselves  into  a  civilized  people. 
Men  of  another  stamp  would  not  have  succeeded ; 
the  inilleu  was  too  unfavorable.  In  analogous  con- 
ditions the   inferior   races  of  Canada  and   Russian 

♦See  Alphonse  Esquiros'.  "La  Neerlande  et  la  Vie  Neerlandaise. " 
2  vols. 


AV  THE  NETHERLANDS.  41 

AniLTicn,  liave  remained  savage ;  other  well-endowed 
races,  the  Celts  of  Ireland  and  tlie  Highland  Scotch, 
attained  only  to  a  chivalric  standard  of  society  and 
poetic  legends.  Here  there  had  to  be  good,  sound 
heads,  a  capacity  to  subject  sensation  to  thought,  to 
patiently  endure  ennui  and  fatigue,  to  accept  priva- 
tion and  labor  in  view  of  a  remote  end,  in  short  a 
Germanic  race,  meaning  by  this  men  organized  to 
co-operate  together,  to  toil,  to  struggle,  to  begin 
over  and  over  again  and  ameliorate  unceasingly,  to 
dike  streams,  to  oppose  tides,  to  drain  the  soil,  to 
turn  wind,  water,  flats,  and  argillaceous  mud  to 
account,  to  build  canals,  ships  and  mills,  to  make 
brick,  raise  cattle,  and  organize  various  manufac- 
turing and  commercial  enterprises.  The  difficulty 
being  very  great  the  mind  was  absorbed  in  over- 
coming it,  and,  turned  wholly  in  this  direction, 
was  diverted  from  other  things.  To  subsist,  to 
obtain  shelter,  food  and  raiment,  to  protect  them- 
selves against  cold  and  damp,  to  accumulate  stores 
and  lay  up  wealth  left  the  settlers  no  time  to  think 
of  other  matters ;  the  mind  got  to  be  wholly  positive 
and  practical.     It  is  impossible  in  such  a  country  to 


42  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

indulge  in  re  very,  to  philosophize  German  fashion, 
10  stray  off  amidst  chimeras  of  tlie  fancy  and 
through  the  world  of  metaphysical  systems.*  One 
is  immediately  brought  back  to  the  earth.  The 
necessity  of  action  is  too  universal,  too  urgent,  too 
constant ;  if  people  think  at  all,  it  is  to  act.  Under 
this  steady  pressure  the  character  forms  ;  that  which 
was  habit  becomes  instinct ;  the  form  acquired  by 
the  parent  is  found  hereditary  in  the  child ;  laborer, 
artisan,  trader,  factor,  householder,  man  of  common 
sense  and  nothing  more,  he  is  by  birth  and  without 
effort  what  his  ancestors  got  to  be  through  necessity 
and  constraint.! 

This  positive  spirit,  moreover,  is  found  to  be  tran- 
quillized. Compared  with  other  nations  of  the  same 
stock  and  with  a  genius  no  less  practical,  the  denizen 
of  the  Netherlands  appears  better  balanced  and  more 
capable  of  being  content.  We  do  not  see  in  him  the 
violent  passions,  the  militant  disposition,  the  over- 
strained will,  the  bull-dog  instincts,  the  sombre  and 


♦Alfred  Michiels'  "Histoire  de  la  Peintiire,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  233.    This 
volume  contains  a  namber  of  general  views  all  deservinor  of  attention. 
t  Prosper  Lucas'  "  De  THer^dit^,"  and  Darwin's  "  Origin  of  Species.* 


rV  THE  NETHERLANDS.  43 

grandiose  pride  -which  three  permanent  conquests  and 
the  secular  establishment  of  political  strife  have  im- 
planted in  the  English  ;  nor  that  restless  and  exag- 
gerated desire  for  action  which  a  dry  atmosphere, 
sudden  changes  from  heat  to  cold,  a  surplus  elec- 
tricity, have  implanted  in  the  Americans  of  the 
United  States.  He  lives  in  a  moist  and  equable 
climate,  one  which  relaxes  the  nerves  and  developes 
the  lymphatic  temperament,  which  moderates  the 
insurrections,  explosions  and  impetuosity  of  the  spirit, 
soothing  the  asperities  of  passion  and  diverting  the 
oharactor  to  the  side  of  sensuality  and  good  humor. 
You  have  already  observed  this  effect  of  climate  in 
our  comparisons  of  the  genius  and  the  art  of  the 
Venetians  with  those  of  the  Florentines.  Here, 
moreover,  events  come  to  the  aid  of  climate,  histoiy 
laborinsj  in  the  same  direction  as  phvsiolosfv.  The 
natives  of  these  countries  have  not  undergone,  like 
their  neighbors  over  the  channel,  two  or  three  inva- 
sions, the  overrunning  of  an  entire  people,  Saxons, 
Danes  and  Xormans  installed  on  their  premises ; 
they  have  not  garnered  a  heritage  of  hatred  which 
oppression,  resistance,    rancor,    prolonged   struggle, 


44:  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  APT 

warfare — at  first  open  and  violent,  and  afterwards 
subdued  and  legal — transmit  from  one  generation  to 
another.  From  the  earliest  times  down  we  find  them 
engaged,  as  in  the  age  of  Pliny,  in  making  salt, 
*'  combined  together,  according  to  ancient  usage,  in 
bringing  under  cultivation  marshy  grounds,"*  free  in 
their  guilds,  asserting  their  independence,  claiming 
their  rights  and  immemorial  privileges,  devoted  to 
whaling,  trade  and  manufacturing,  calling  their  towns 
2yorts,  in  brief,  as  Guiccardini  describes  them  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  "  very  desirous  of  gain  and  watch- 
ful of  profit,  but  without  anything  feverish  or  irra- 
tional in  their  desire  to  provide  for  themselves. 
They  are  by  nature  cool  and  self-possessed.  They 
delight  in  wealth  and  other  worldly  things  prudently 
and  as  occasion  offers,  and  are  not  easily  disturbed, 
which  is  at  once  aj^parent  both  in  their  discourse  and 
in  their  physiognomies.  They  are  not  prone  to  anger 
or  to  pride,  but  live  together  on  good  terms,  and  are 
especially  of  a  gay  and  lively  humor."  According  to 
bim  they  entertain  no  vast  and  overweening  ambi- 

*  Moke's  "Mceurs  etUeages  des  Beiges,"  pp.  Ill,  113.    A  capitulary 
of  the  ninth  century. 


ZiY  THE  NETHERLANDS.  45 

tion  ;  many  of  them. retire  from  business  early,  amus- 
ing themselves  with  building,  and  taking  life  easily 
and  pleasantly.  All  circumstances,  moral  and  phys- 
ical,  tlieir  geographical  and  political  state,  the  past 
and  the  present,  combine  to  one  end,  namely,  the 
development  of  one  faculty  and  one  tendency  at  the 
expense  of  the  rest,  shrewd  management  and  tem- 
perate emotions,  a  practical  understanding  and  lim- 
ited desires  ;  they  comjorehend  the  amelioration  of 
outward  things,  and,  this  accomplished,  they  crave 
no  more. 

Consider,  in  eiFect,  their  work ;  its  perfection  and 
iacunoe  indicate  at  once  the  limits  and  the  power  of 
their  intellect.  Tiie  profound  philosophy  Avhich  is  so 
natural  in  Germany,  and  tlie  elevated  poetry  which 
flourishes  in  England,  they  lack.  They  fail  to  over- 
look material  things  and  positive  interests  in  order 
to  yield  to  pure  speculation,  to  follow  the  temerities 
of  logic,  to  attenuate  the  delicacy  of  analysis,  and 
bury  themselves  in  the  depths  of  abstraction.  They 
ignore  that  spiritual  turmoil,  those  eruptions  of 
suppressed  feeling  which  give  to  style  a  tragic 
accent,  and   that  vagabond    fancy,  those   exquisite 


46  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

and  sublime  reveries  which  outside  of  life's  vulgari- 
ties reveal  a  new  universe.  They  can  boast  of  no 
great  philosopher;  their  Spinoza  is  a  Jew,  a  pupil 
of  Descartes  and  the  rabbis,  an  isolated  recluse  of  a 
different  genius  and  a  different  race.  None  of  their 
books  have  become  European  like  those  of  Burns 
and  Camoens,  who,  nevertheless,  were  born  out  of 
nations  equally  small.  One  only  of  their  authors 
has  been  read  by  every  man  of  his  epoch,  Erasmus, 
a  refined  writer  but  who  wrote  in  Latin,  and  who, 
in  education,  taste,  style  and  ideas  belongs  to  the 
erudites  and  humanists  of  Italy.  The  old  Dutch 
poets,  as  for  example,  Jacob  Cats,  are  grave,  sensi- 
ble, somewhat  tedious  moralists,  who  laud  home  en- 
joyments and  the  life  of  the  family.  The  Flemish 
poets  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  tell 
their  auditors  that  they  do  not  recount  chivalric 
fables — but  veritable  histories,  their  poesy  ending  in 
practical  maxims  and  contemporary  events.  In  vain 
do  their  belle-lettre  academies  cultivate  and  make 
poetry  prominent,  there  being  no  talent  to  produce 
out  of  such  resources  any  great  or  beautiful  perfor- 
mance.    Chroniclers  arise  like  Chatelain,  and  pam- 


JZV"  THE  NETHERLANDS.  4.7 

plileteers  like  Marnix  de  Sainte-Aldegonde,  tut  tlieir 
luictuoiis  narratives  are  inflated ;  their  overcharged 
eloquence,  coarse  and  crude,  recalls,  without  equal- 
ling it,  the  rude  color  and  vigorous  grossness  of  their 
national  art.  They  have  scarcely  any  literature  at 
the  present  day.  Tlieir  only  novelist,  Conscience, 
seems  to  us,  although  a  tolerable  observer,  dull  and 
unrefined.  If  we  visit  their  country  and  read  their 
journals,  those  at  least  not  got  up  in  Paris,  we  seem 
to  have  fallen  upon  the  provinces,  and  even  lower. 
Polemical  discussions  are  gross,  the  flowers  of  rheto- 
yic  stale,  humor  rudely  indulged,  and  wit  pointless; 
a  coarse  joviality  and  a  coarse  anger  supply  the 
material ;  their  very  caricatures  seem  to  us  stupid. 
If  we  attempt  to  ascertain  their  contributions  to 
the  great  edifice  of  modern  thought  we  find  that 
patiently  and  methodically,  like  honest  and  faithful 
workmen,  they  have  hewn  out  a  few  blocks.  They 
can  point  to  a  learned  school  of  philologists  at 
Leyden,  to  jurisprudential  authorities  like  Grotius, 
to  naturalists  and  physicians  like  Leeuvenhoeck, 
Swamraerdam  and  Boerhaave,  to  physicists  like 
Huyghens,  and  to  cosmographers  like  Ortelius  and 


48  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

Mercator,  in  short,  to  a  contingent  of  specialist 
and  useful  men,  but  to  no  creative  intellect  dis- 
closing to  the  world  grand  original  ideas  or  enshrin- 
ing orio-inal  conceptions  in  beautiful  forms  capable 
of  universal  ascendancy.  They  have  left  to  neigh- 
boring nations  the  part  filled  by  the  contemplative 
Mary  at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  choosing  for  themselves 
that  of  Martha ;  in  the  seventeenth  century  they 
provided  pulpits  for  the  Protestant  erudites  exiled 
from  France,  a  country  for  free  thought  persecuted 
throughout  Europe,  and  editors  for  all  books  of 
science  and  polemics;  at  a  later  period  they  fur- 
nished printers  for  the  whole  of  our  eighteenth 
century  philosophy,  and  finally  booksellers,  brokers 
and  counterfeiters  for  the  entire  literature  of  mod- 
ern times.  All  this  is  of  service  to  them  for  they 
are  versed  in  languages,  and  read  and  are  in- 
structed, instruction  being  an  acquisition  and  some- 
thing which  it  is  good  to  lay  up  like  other  things. 
But  there  they  stop,  and  neither  their  ancient  nor 
tkeir  modern  works  show  any  need  of  or  faculty  for 
contemplating  the  abstract  beyond  the  apparent 
\Vorld  and  tlie  imaginary  world  outside  of  reality. 


Ij^  the  NETnERLANDS.  40 

On  the  contrary  they  have  always  excelled  and 
they  still  excel  in  the  arts  called  useful.  "First 
among  transalpine  people,"  says  Gniecardini,  "  they 
invented  woolen  fabrics."  Up  to  1404  tliey  alone 
were  capable  of  weaving  and  manufacturing  tliem. 
England  supplied  tliem  with  the  raw  material,  tlie 
English  doing  no  more  than  raise  and  shear  the 
sheep.  At  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  an 
unique  thing  in  Europe,  "  almost  everybody,  even 
the  peasantry,  could  read  and  write ;  a  great  many 
even  acquired  the  principles  of  grammar."  "\Ye 
find,  accordingly,  belle-lettre  academies,  that  is  to 
say  associations  for  oratory  and  dramatic  representa- 
tions, even  in  the  small  towns.  This  indicates  the 
degree  of  perfection  to  which  they  brought  their 
civilization.  "  They  have,"  says  Guiccardini,  "  a 
special  and  happy  talent  for  the  ready  invention  of 
all  sorts  of  machines,  ingenious  and  suitable  for 
facilitating,  shortening  and  dispatching  everything 
they  do,  even  in  the  matter  of  cooking."  They, 
indeed,  with  the  Italians,  are  the  first  in  Europe  to 
attain  to  prosperity,  wealth,  security,  liberty,  com 
fort,  and  all  other  benefits  which   seem  to  us  the 


50  THE  PIULOSOPHT  OF  ART 

paraphernalia  of  modern  times.  In  the  thirteenth 
century  Bruges  was  equal  to  Venice;  in  the  six- 
teenth century  Antwerp  was  the  industiial  and  com- 
mercial capital  of  the  Xorth.  Guiccardini  never 
wearies  in  praising  it,  and  lie  only  saw  it  when  it 
was  in  full  decline,  reconquered  hy  the  Duke  of 
Parma  after  the  terrible  siege  of  1585.  In  the  sev- 
enteenth century  Holland,  remaining  free,  occupies 
for  a  century  the  place  which  England  now  holds  in 
the  world  of  to-day.  It  is  in  vain  for  Flanders  to 
fall  back  into  Spanish  hands,  to  be  ravaged  by  the 
wars  of  Louis  XIV.,  to  be  surrendered  to  Austria,  to 
serve  as  a  battle-ground  for  the  wars  of  the  Revo- 
lution ;  she  never  descends  to  the  level  of  Spain  or 
Italy  ;  the  partial  prosperity  she  maintains  through- 
out the  miseries  of  repeated  invasion  and  under  a 
bungling  despotism  shows  the  energy  of  her  inspir- 
ing good  sense  and  the  fecundity  of  her  assiduous 
labor. 

Of  all  the  countries  of  Europe  at  the  present  day 
Belgium  is  the  one  which  with  an  equal  area  su}> 
ports  the  most  inhabitants;  she  feeds  twice  as  many 
as  France;  the  most  populous  of  our  departments, 


IN  THE  NETREBLAND8.  51 

that  of  the  Xorth,  is  a  portion  wliich  Louis  XIV 
dutaclied  from  her.  Towards  Lille  and  Douai  you 
already  see  spread  out  in  an  indefinable  circle,  ex 
tending  up  to  the  horizon,  this  great  kitchen  garden, 
a  deep  and  fertile  soil  diapered  with  pale  grain 
sheaves,  poppy-fields,  and  the  large-leaved  beet,  and 
richly  stimulated  by  a  low,  warm  sky  swimming  with 
vapor.  Between  Brussels  and  Malines  begins  the 
broad  prairie,  here  and  there  striped  with  rows  of 
poplars,  intersected  with  w^ater-courses  and  fences, 
where  cattle  browse  throughout  the  year,  an  inex- 
haustible storehouse  of  hay,  milk,  cheese  and  meat. 
In  the  environs  of  Ghent  and  Bruges,  the  land  of 
Waes,  "  the  classic  soil  of  agriculture,"  is  nourished 
by  fertilizers  gathered  in  all  countries,  and  by  barn- 
yard manure  brought  from  Zealand.  Holland,  in  like 
manner,  is  simply  a  pasturage,  a  natural  tillage, 
wdiich,  instead  of  exhausting  the  soil,  renews  it,  pro- 
viding its  cultivators  with  the  amplest  crops,  and 
afibrding  to  the  consumer  the  most  strengthening 
aliments.  In  Holland,  at  Buicksloot,  there  are  mil- 
lionaire cow-herds,  the  Netherlands  ever  seeming 
to  the  stranger  to  be  a  land  of  feasting  and  good 


52  THE  PHILOSOrUY  OF  ABT 

cheer.  If  you  turn  from  agricultural  to  industrial 
results,  you  will  everywhere  encounter  the  same  art 
of  utilizing  and  making  the  best  of  things.  Obsta- 
cles with  tliem  are  transformed  into  aids.  The  soil 
was  flat  and  soaked  with  water ;  they  took  advan- 
tage of  it  to  cover  it  with  canals  and  railroads,  no 
place  in  Europe  presenting  so  many  channels  of  com- 
munication and  of  transport.  They  were  in  want  of 
fuel ;  they  dug  down  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth, 
the  coal-pits  of  Belgium  being  as  rich  as  those  of 
England.  The  rivers  annoyed  them  with  their  inun- 
dations and  inland  pools  deprived  them  of  a  portion 
of  their  territory  ;  they  drained  the  pools,  diked  the 
streams,  and  profited  by  the  rich  alluvions  and  the 
slow  deposits  of  vegetable  mould  with  which  the 
surplus  or  stagnant  waters  overspread  their  land. 
Their  canals  freeze  up ;  they  take  skates  and  travel 
in  w^inter  five  leagues  an  hour.  The  sea  threatened 
them  ;  after  forcing  it  back,  they  avail  themselves  of 
it  to  traffic  witli  all  nations.  Tiie  winds  sweep  unim- 
peded across  their  flat  country  and  over  the  turbu- 
lent ocean;  they  make  them  swell  the  sails  of  their 
vessels  and  move  the  wings  of  their  windmills.     lu 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  53 

Holland  you  ^vill  observe  at  every  turn  of  the  road 
one  of  these  enormous  structures,  a  hundred  feet 
higli,  furnished  with  machinery  and  pumps,  busy  in 
emptying  the  overflow  of  water,  sawing  ship-timber 
and  manufacturing  oil.  From  the  steamer,  in  front 
of  Amsterdam,  you  see,  stretching  off  as  far  as  the 
eye  can  reach,  an  infinite  spider's  web,  a  light,  indis- 
tinct and  complex  fringe  of  masts  and  arms  of  wind- 
mills encircling  the  horizon  with  their  innumerable 
fibres.  The  impression  you  carry  away  is  that  of  a 
country  transformed  from  end  to  end  by  the  hand 
and  the  art  of  man,  and  sometimes  entirely  created 
until  it  becomes  a  comfortable  and  productive  ter- 
ritory. 

Let  us  go  further;  let  us  take  a  near  view  of  man, 
and  appreciate  the  most  important  object  belonging 
to  him — his  habitation.  There  is  no  stone  in  this 
country — nothing  but  an  adhesive  clay,  suitable  for 
men  and  horses  to  mire  their  feet  in.  It  occurred  to 
the  people,  however,  to  bake  it,  and  in  this  way 
brick  and  tile,  which  are  the  best  of  defences  against 
humidity,  came  into  their  hands.  You  see  well  con- 
trived buildings  of  an  agreeable  aspect,  with  red,. 


54:  TUE  PIIILOSOPUY  OF  ART 

brown  and  rosy  walls  covered  with  a  bright  stucco 
white  fayades  varnished  and  sometimes  decorated 
with  sculj^tured  flowers,  animals,  medallions  and 
small  columns.  In  the  older  cities  the  house  often 
stands  with  its  gable  to  the  street,  festooned  with 
arcades,  branchings  and  leafage,  which  terminate  in 
a  bird,  an  apple  or  a  bust ;  it  is  not,  as  in  our 
cities,  a  continuation  of  its  neighbor — an  abstract 
compartment  of  vast  barracks,  but  an  object  aj^art, 
endowed  with  a  sj^ecial  and  private  character,  at 
once  interesting  and  picturesque.  Nothing  could 
be  better  kept  and  cleaner.  At  Douai  the  poorest 
have  their  domicile  whitewashed  once  a  year,  out- 
side and  in,  it  being  necessary  to  engage  the  white- 
washer  six  months  in  advance.  At  Antwerp,  in 
Ghent  and  in  Bruges,  and  especially  in  the  small 
towns,  most  of  the  fayades  seem  to  be  newly  painted 
or  freshened  the  day  before.  Washing  and  sweep- 
ing are  going  on  on  all  sides.  When  you  reach 
Holland  there  is  extra  care  even  to  exaggera- 
tion. You  see  domestics  at  five  o'clock  in  the 
morning  scrubbing  the  sidewalks.  In  the  envi- 
rons of  Amsterdam  the  villages  seem  to  be  scenery 


IN  THE  KErilERLANDS.  55 

from  the  Opera -Comique,  so  tidy  and  so  well, 
dusted  are  they.  There  are  stables  for  cows,  the 
flooring  of  which  is  cabinet  work;  you  can  enter 
them  only  in  slij^pers  or  sabots  placed  at  the 
entrance  for  that  purpose ;  a  spot  of  dirt  would  be 
scandalous,  and  still  more  so  any  odor  ;  the  cows' 
tails  are  lield  np  by  a  small  cord  to  prevent  thera 
from  soiling  themselves.  Vehicles  are  prohibited 
from  entering  the  village ;  the  sidewalks  of  brick 
and  blue  porcelain  are  more  irreproacliable  than  a 
vestibule  with  us.  In  autumn  children  come  and 
gather  up  the  fallen  leaves  in  the  streets  to  deposit 
them  in  a  pit.  Everywhere,  in  the  small  rooms, 
seemingly  the  state-rooms  of  a  ship,  the  order  and 
arrangement  are  the  same  as  on  a  ship.  In  Broeck, 
it  is  said,  there  is  in  each  house  a  particular  room 
which  is  entered  only  once  a  week  in  order  to  clean 
and  rub  the  furniture,  and  then  carefully  closed ;  in 
a  country  so  damp,  dirt  immediately  becomes  a 
deleterious  mould;  man,  compelled  to  scrupulous 
cleanliness,  contracts  the  habit,  experiences  its  neces- 
sity, and  at  last  falls  under  its  tyranny.  You  would 
be  pleased,  however,  to  see  the  humblest  shop  of 


56  THE  PUILO SOPHY  OF  ART 

the  smallest  street  in  Amsterdam,  with  its  brown 
casks,  its  immaculate  counter,  its  scoured  benches, 
everything  in  its  place,  the  economy  of  small  quar- 
ters, the  intelligent  and  handy  arrangement  of  all 
utensils.  Guiccardini  already  remarks  "  that  tlieir 
houses  and  clothes  are  clean,  handsome  and  well- 
arranged,  that  they  have  much  furniture,  utensils 
and  domestic  objects,  kept  in  better  order  and  with 
a  finer  lustre  than  in  any  other  country."  It  is 
necessary  to  see  the  comfort  of  their  apartments, 
especially  the  houses  of  the  middle  classes — carpets, 
waxed  cloths  for  the  floors,  w\arm  and  heat-saving 
chimneys  of  iron  and  porcelain,  triple  curtains  at  the 
windows,  clear,  dark  and  highly  polished  window- 
panes,  vases  of  flowers  and  green  plants,  innumera- 
ble knick-knacks  indicative  of  sedentary  habits  and 
which  render  home  life  pleasant,  mirrors  placed  so  as 
to  reflect  the  people  passing  in  the  street  together 
with  its  changing  aspects ; — every  detail  shows  some 
inconvenience  remedied,  some  want  satisfied,  some 
pleasant  contrivance,  some  thoughtful  provision,  in 
short,  the  universal  reign  of  a  sagacious  activity  and 
the  extreme  of  comfort. 


I]^  Tim  NETHERLANDS.  57 

Man,  in  effect,  is  tliat  which  his  work  indicates. 
Thus  endowed  and  thus  situated,  he  enjoys  and  knows 
how  to  enjoy.  The  bountiful  soil  furnishes  liim  with 
abundant  nutriment  —  meat,  fish,  vegetables,  beer 
and  brandy ;  he  eats  and  drinks  copiously,  wliile  in 
Belgium  tlie  Germanic  appetite,  as  it  grows  in  fas- 
tidiousness without  decreasing,  becomes  gastronomic 
sensuality.  Cooking  there  is  scientific  and  perfect, 
even  to  the  hotel  tables ;  I  believe  that  they  are  tlie 
best  in  Europe.  There  is  a  certain  hotel  in  Mons  to 
which  visitors  from  tlie  small  neighboring  towns 
come  to  dine  every  Saturday,  especially  to  enjoy  a 
delicate  meal.  They  lack  wine,  but  they  import  it 
from  Germany  and  France,  and  boast  the  possession 
of  the  best  vintages :  we  do  not,  in  their  opinion, 
treat  our  wines  with  the  respect  they  deserve  ;  it  is 
necessary  to  be  a  Belgian  to  care  for  and  relish  them 
in  a  proper  manner.  There  is  no  important  hotel 
which  is  not  supplied  with  a  varied  and  select  stock ; 
its  reputation  and  custom  are  made  by  the  selection  ; 
in  the  railroad  cars  the  conversation  tends  sponta- 
neously to  the  merits  of  two  rival  cellars.  A  prudent 
merchant  will  have  twelve  thousand  bottles  in  hii 
3* 


58  THE  PHILOSOPHT  OF  ART 

sfinded  cellars,  duly  classified;  it  constitutes  his 
library.  The  burgomaster  of  a  petty  Dutch  town 
possesses  a  cask  of  genuine  Johannisberger,  made  in 
the  best  year,  and  this  cask  adds  to  the  consideration 
of  its  owner.  A  man  there,  who  gives  a  dinner  party, 
knows  how  to  make  his  wines  succeed  each  other  in 
such  a  way  as  not  to  impair  the  taste  and  have  as 
many  as  possible  consumed.  As  to  the  pleasures  of 
the  ear  and  the  eye,  they  understand  them  as  well 
as  those  of  the  palate  and  the  stomach.  They  in- 
stinctively love  the  music  which  we  only  appreciate 
through  culture.  In  the  sixteenth  century  they  are 
first  in  this  art ;  Guiccardini  states  that  their  vocalists 
and  instrumentalists  are  esteemed  in  all  the  courts 
of  Christendom ;  abroad,  their  professors  found 
schooTs,  and  their  compositions  are  standards  of  au- 
thority. Even  nowadays  the  great  musical  endow- 
ment of  being  able  to  sing  in  parts  is  encountered 
even  amongst  the  populace ;  the  coal-miners  organ- 
ize choral  societies ;  I  have  heard  laborers  in  Brussels 
and  Antwerp,  and  the  ship  caulkers  and  sailors  of 
Amsterdam  sing  in  chorus,  and  in  true  time,  while  at 
work  and  in  the  street  on  returning  home  at  night. 


IJV  THE  NETHERLANDS.  59 

Tlicre  is  no  large  Belgian  tovrn  in  wliieli  a  chime  of 
bells,  perched  in  the  belfry,  does  not  every  quarter 
of  an  hour  amuse  the  artizan  in  his  shop  and  the 
trader  at  liis  counter  with  the  peculiar  harmonies  of 
their  sonorous  metal.  In  like  manner  their  city  halls, 
their  house-fronts,  even  their  old  drinking-cups  are, 
through  their  complex  ornamentation,  their  intricate 
lines  and  their  original,  and  often  fantastic  design, 
agreeable  to  the  eye.  Add  to  this  the  free  or  well- 
composed  tones  of  the  bricks  forming  the  walls,  and 
the  richness  of  the  brown  and  red  tints  relieving  on 
white  displayed  on  the  roofs  and  fa9ades — assuredly 
the  towns  of  the  ISTetherlands  are  as  picturesque  of 
their  kind  as  any  in  Italy.  In  all  times  they  have 
delighted  in  kermesses  slu^  fetes  de  Gaycint,  in  corpor- 
ation processions,  and  in  the  parade  and  glitter  of 
costumes  and  materials.  I  shall  show  you  the  com- 
pletely Italian  pomp  of  the  civic  entries  and  other 
ceremonies  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries. 
They  are  epicureans  as  well  as  gourmands  in  the 
matter  of  comfortable  living ;  regularly,  calmly, 
without  heat  or  enthusiasm  they  glean  up  every 
pleasing   harmony  of  savor,  sound,  color  and  form 


60  TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

that  arises  out  of  their  prosperity  and  abundance, 
like  tulips  on  a  heap  of  compost.  All  this  produces 
good  sense  somewhat  limited,  and  happiness  some- 
Avhat  gross.  A  Frenchman  would  soon  yawn  ever 
it,  but  he  would  make  a  mistake,  for  this  civiliza- 
tion, which  seems  to  him  unctuous  and  vulgar,  pos- 
sesses one  sterling  merit — it  is  healthy;  the  men 
living  here  have  a  gift  we  lack  the  most — wisdom, 
and  a  compensation  we  are  equally  undeserving  of — 
contentment. 


/JV'  rUE  NETHERLANDS.  61 


III. 


Sach,  in  this  country,  is  the  human  plant;  wg 
liave  now  to  examine  its  art,  which  is  the  flower. 
Among  all  the  brandies  of  the  Germanic  trunk, 
this  plant  alone  has  produced  a  complete  flower* 
the  art  which  developes  so  happily  and  so  naturally 
in  the  Netherlands  proves  abortive  with  tlie  othei 
Germanic  nations  for  tlie  reason  that  this  glorious 
privilege  emanates  from  the  national  character  as 
we  have  just  set  it  forth. 

To  comprehend  and  love  painting  requires  an  eye 
iSensitive  to  forms  and  to  colors,  and,  without  edu- 
cation or  apprenticeship,  one  which  takes  pleasure 
in  the  juxtaposition  of  tones  and  is  delicate  in  the 
matter  of  optical  sensations ;  the  man  who  would  be 
a  painter  must  be  capable  of  losing  himself  in  view- 
ing the  rich  consonance  of  red  and  green,  in  watch- 
in  2:  the  diminution  of  lio-ht  as  it  is  transformed  into 
darkness,  and  in  detecting  the  subtle  hues  of  silks 
and  satins,  which  according  to  their  breaks,  recesses 
and   depths   of  fold,   assume   opaline    tints,   vague 


62  THE  FRILO SOPHY  OF  ART 

luminous  gleams  and  imperceptible  shades  of  blue. 
The  eye  is  epicurean  like  the  palate,  and  j^ainting  is 
an  exquisite  feast  served  up  to  it.  For  this  reason 
it  is  that  Germany  and  England  have  had  no 
great  pictorial  art.  In  Germany  the  too  great  dom- 
ination of  abstract  ideas  has  left  no  room  for  the 
sensuousness  of  the  eye.  Its  early  school,  that  of 
Cologne,  instead  of  representing  bodies,  represented 
mystic,  pious  and  tender  souls.  In  vain  did  the 
great  German  artist  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Albert 
Diirer,  familiarize  himself  with  the  Italian  masters; 
he  retains  his  graceless  forms,  his  angular  folds, 
his  ugly  nudities,  his  dull  color,  his  barbarous, 
gloomy  and  saddened  faces ;  the  wild  imagination, 
the  deep  religious  sentiment  and  the  vague  philoso- 
phic divinations  which  shine  through  his  works, 
show  an  intellect  to  which  form  is  inadequate. 
Examine  the  infant  Christ  in  the  Louvre,  by  Wohl- 
gemuth, his  master,  and  an  Eve,  by  Lucas  Cranach, 
a  contemporary ;  you  will  realize  that  the  men  who 
executed  such  groups  and  such  bodies  were  born 
for  theology  and  not  for  painting.  Again  at  the 
present    day   they   esteem    and   eniov   the    inward 


I^^  THE  NErUERLANBS.  63 

rather  than  the  outward ;  Cornelius  and  the  Mu- 
nich masters  regard  tlie  idea  as  principal,  and  exe 
cution  as  secondary ;  the  master  conceives  and  the 
pupil  paints ;  the  aim  of  their  wholly  philosophic 
and  symbolic  work  is  to  excite  the  spectator  to 
reflect  on  some  great  moral  or  social  verity.  In 
like  manner  Overbeck  aims  at  edification  and 
preaches  sentimental  asceticism ;  and  even  Knauss, 
again,  who  is  such  an  able  psychologist  that  his 
pictures  form  idyls  and  comedies.  f^As  to  the  Eng- 
lish, up  to  the  eighteenth  century,  they  do  but 
little  more  than  import  pictures  and  artists  from 
abroad.  Temperament  in  this  country  is  too  mil- 
itant, the  will  too  stern,  the  mind  too  utilitarian, 
man  too  case-hardened,  too  absorbed  and  too  over- 
tasked to  linger  over  and  revel  in  the  beautiful 
and  delicate  gradations  of  contours  and  colors. 
Their  national  painter,  Hogarth,  simply  produced 
moral  caricatures.  Others,  like  Wilkie,  use  their 
pencil  to  render  sentiments  and  characteristic  traits 
visible ;  even  in  landscape  they  depict  the  spiritual 
element,  corporeal  objects  serving  them  simply  as 
an  index  or  suggestion ;  it  is  even  apparent  in  their 


(54  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

two  great  laiulscnpists,  Constable  and  Turner,  and 
in  their  two  great  portrait  painters,  Gainsborough 
and  Reynolds.  Their  coloring  of  to-day,  finally,  is 
shockingly  crude,  and  their  drawing  literal  minu- 
tiae. The  Flemings  and  Hollanders  alone  have 
prized  forms  and  colors  for  their  own  sake.  This 
sentiment  still  persists.  Proof  of  this  is  to  be 
found  in  the  picturesqueness  of  their  towns  and  in 
the  agreeable  aspect  of  their  homes ;  last  year  at 
the  Universal  Exposition  (1867)  you  could  see  for 
yourselves  that  genuine  art — painting  exempt  from 
philosophic  motive  and  literary  deviation,  capable  of 
manipulating  form  without  servility  and  color  with- 
out barbarisms — scarcely  exists  anywhere  but  with 
them  and  with  ourselves. 

Thanks  to  this  national  endowment,  in  the  fif- 
teenth, sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  when 
circumstances  became  favorable,  they  were  able  to 
maintain  in  the  face  of  Italy  a  great  school  of  paint- 
ing. But  as  they  were  Germans  their  school  fol 
lowed  the  German  track.  What  distinguishes  their 
race  from  classic  races  is,  as  you  have  seen,  a  pref 
rence  for  substance  over  form,  of  actual  verity  to 


7.Y  THE  NETHERLANDS.  05 

biaiuiful  externals,  of  the  real,  complex,  irregiilai 
and  natural  object  to  the  well-ordered,  pruned, 
"efined  and  transformed  object.  This  instinct,  of 
which  you  remark  the  ascendancy  in  their  religion 
and  literature,  has  likewise  controlled  their  art  and 
notably  their  painting.  "The  prime  significance  of 
the  Flemish  school,"  says  M.  Wiiagen,  "  proceeds 
from  its  having,  through  its  freedom  from  foreign 
influences,  revealed  to  us  the  contrast  of  sentiments 
of  the  Greek  and  the  German  races,  the  two  columnar 
capitals  of  ancient  and  modern  civilization.  Whilst 
the  Greeks  sought  to  idealize  not  merely  concep- 
tions taken  from  the  ideal  world,  but  even  portraits, 
oy  simplifying  the  forms  and  accentuating  the  most 
important  features,  the  early  Flemings  on  the  con 
trary  translated  into  portraiture  the  ideal  personifi- 
cations of  the  Virgin,  the  apostles,  the  prophets  and 
the  martyrs,  ever  striving  to  represent  in  an  exact 
manner  the  petty  details  of  nature.  Whilst  the 
Greeks  expressed  the  details  of  landscaj)e,  rivers, 
fountains  and  trees  under  abstract  forms,  the  Flem- 
ings strove  to  render  them  precisely  as  they  saw 
them.     In  relation  to  the  ideal  and  the  tendency  of 


QQ  THE  PUILOSOPIIY  OF  ART 

the  Greeks  to  personify  everything,  the  Flemifjgs 
created  a  realistic  school,  a  school  of  landscape.  In 
tliis  respect  the  Germans  first  and  the  English  after- 
wards have  j)ui'sued  the  same  course."  *  Rua  over 
a  collection  of  engravings  containing  the  works  of 
German  origin  from  Albert  Diirer,  Martin  Schon- 
gauer,  the  Van  Eycks,  Holbein  and  Lucas  of  Leyden, 
down  to  Rubens,  Rembrandt,  Paul  Potter,  Jan  Steen 
and  Hogarth  ;  if  your  imagination  is  filled  with  noble 
Italian  or  with  elegant  French  forms,  your  eyes  will 
be  ofi'ended ;  you  will  experience  some  difficulty  in 
taking  the  proper  standpoint ;  you  will  often  fancy 
that  the  artist  purposely  studied  the  ugly.  The 
truth  is  he  is  not  repelled  by  the  trivialities  and 
deformities  of  life.  He  does  not  naturally  enter  into 
the  symmetrical  composition,  the  tranquil  and  easy 
action,  the  beautiful  proportions,  the  healthiness  and 
asfility  of  the  naked  figure.  When  the  Flemings  in 
the  sixteenth  century  resorted  to  the  Italian  school, 
they  only  succeeded  in  spoiling  their  original  style. 
During  seventy  years  of  patient  imitation  they 
brought  forth  nothing  but  hybrid  abortions.      This 

♦  "Manuel  de  rhistorie  de  la  Peinture,"  Vol.  1,  p.  79. 


AV  THE  NETllEliLANDS.  67 

long  period  of  fjiiliire,  placed  between  two  long  peri- 
ods of  superiority,  shows  the  limits  and  the  power 
of  their  original  aptitudes.  They  were  incapable  of 
simplifying  nature ;  they  aimed  to  reproduce  her  en- 
tire. They  did  not  concentrate  her  in  the  nude  body ; 
they  assigned  equal  importance  to  all  her  appear- 
ances— landscajjes,  edifices,  animals,  costumes  and 
accessories.*  They  are  not  qualified  to  comprehend 
and  prize  the  ideal  body*,  they  are  constituted  to 
paint  and  enforce  the  actual  body. 

Allowing  this,  we  easily  discern  in  what  particu- 
lars they  differ  from  other  masters  of  the  same  race. 
I  have  described  to  you  their  national  genius,  so 
sensible  and  so  well-balanced,  exempt  from  lofty 
aspiration,  limited  to  the  present  and  disposed  to 
enjoyment.     Such  artists  will  not  create  the  melan- 


*  In  this  respect  the  verdict  of  Michael  Angelo  is  very  instructive. 
"Ill  Flanders,"  he  says,  "  they  prefer  to  paint  what  are  called  landscapes 

and  many  fiijures  scattered  here  and  there There  is  neither  art  nor 

reason  in  this,  no  proportion,  no  symmetry,  no  careful  selection,  no 

grandeur If  I  speak  so  ill  of  Flemish  piinting  it  is  not  because  it 

is  wholly  bad,  but  because  it  seeks  to  render  in  perfection  so  many 
objects  of  which  one  alone,  through  its  importance,  would  sufllce,  and 
none  is  produced  in  a  satisfactory  manner,"  We  here  recognize  th« 
classic  and  simplifying  trait  of  Italian  genius. 


68  TUE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

choly  beings  in  painful  abstraction,  weighed  down 
with  the  burden  of  life  and  obstinately  resigned,  of 
Albert  Diirer.  They  will  not  devote  themselves 
like  the  mystic  painters  of  Cologne,  or  the  moralist 
painters  of  England,  to  the  representation  of  spirit- 
ual traits  and  characters ;  little  will  they  concern 
themselves  with  the  disproportion  between  mind 
and  matter.  In  a  fertile  and  luxurious  country, 
amidst  jovial  customs,  in  the  presence  of  placid, 
honest  and  blooming  faces  they  are  to  obtain  the 
models  suited  to  their  genius.  They  almost  always 
paint  man  in  a  well-to-do  condition  and  content 
with  his  lot.  When  they  exalt  him  it  is  without 
raising  him  above  his  terrestrial  condition.  The 
Flemish  school  of  the  seventeenth  century  does  no 
more  than  expand  his  appetite,  his  lusts,  his  energy 
and  his  gayety.  Generally  they  leave  liim  as  he 
is.  The  Dutch  school  confines  itself  to  reproduc- 
ing the  repose  of  the  bourgeois  interior,  the  com- 
forts of  shop  and  farm,  out-door  sports  and  tavern 
enjoyments,  all  the  petty  satisfactions  of  an  orderly 
and  tranquil  existence.  Nothing  could  be  better 
adapted   to  painting;  too  much  thought    and  em> 


IN  THE  KfJTIiEIiLAyBS.  G9 

tion  is  detrimental  to  it.  Subjects  of  this  order  eon 
ceived  in  such  a  spirit,  furnish  works  of  a  rare  bar 
mony ;  the  Greeks  alone,  and  a  few  great  Italian 
artists  have  set  us  the  example ;  the  painters  of  the 
Netherlands  on  a  lower  stage  do  as  they  did,  they 
represent  man  to  us  complete  of  his  type,  adapted 
to  things  around  him  and  therefore  happy  without 
effort. 

One  point  remains  to  be  considered.  One  of  the 
Jeading  merits  of  this  art  is  the  excellence  and  deli- 
cacy of  its  coloring.  This  is  owing  to«the  education 
of  the  eye,  which  in  Flanders  and  in  Holland  is  pecu- 
liar. The  country  is  a  saturated  delta  like  that  of 
the  Po,  w^hile  Bruges,  Ghent,  Antwerp,  Amsterdam, 
Rotterdam,  Hague  and  Utrecht,  through  their  rivers, 
canals,  sea  and  atmosphere  resemble  Venice.  Here, 
as  at  Venice,  nature  has  made  man  colorist.  Ob- 
serve the  different  aspect  of  things  according  as  you 
are  in  a  dry  country  like  Provenye  and  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Florence,  or  on  a  wet  plain  like  the  Nether- 
lands. In  the  dry  country  the  line  predominates, 
and  at  once  attracts  attention ;  the  mountains  cut 
sharp  against  the  sky,  with  their  stories  of  architeo 


70  THE  philosoi;hy  of  art 

ture  of  a  grand  and  noble  style,  all  objects  projecting 
upward  in  the  limpid  air  in  varied  prominence. 
Here  the  low  horizon  is  without  interest,  and  tho 
contours  of  objects  are  softened,  blended  and  blurred 
out  by  the  imperceptible  vapor  with  which  the  at 
mosphere  is  always  filled  ;  that  which  predominates 
is  the  spot.  A  cow  pasturing,  a  roof  in  the  centre 
of  a  field,  a  man  leaning  on  a  parapet  appear  as  one 
tone  among  other  tones.  The  object  emerges;  it 
does  not  start  suddenly  out  of  its  surroundings  as  if 
punched  out  ;*yoti  are  struck  by  its  modelling,  that 
is  to  say  by  the  different  degrees  of  advancing  lumin- 
ousness  and  the  diverse  gradations  of  melting  color 
which  transforms  its  general  tint  into  a  relief  and 
give«    to   the   eye   a  sensation  of  thickness.*     You 


*  W.  Burger's  "  Musej3S  de  la  Hollande,"  p.  206 :  "  Modelling,  and  not 
ihiee,  is  what  always  impresses  you  in  the  beauty  of  the  North.  Form, 
Jn  the  North,  does  not  declare  itself  by  contour,  but  by  relief.  Nature, 
in  expressing  herself,  does  not  avail  herself  of  drawing,  properly  so 
called.  Walk  about  an  Italian  town  for  an  hour,  and  you  will  encpimter 
vomen  accurately  defined,  whose  general  structure  brings  to  mind  Greek 
Btatuary,  and  whose  profile  recalls  Greek  cameos.  You  might  pass  a 
jear  in  Antwerp  without  finding  a  single  form  suggesting  the  Idea  of 
^'■anslatiiig  it  by  a  contour,  but  simply  I)y  salieiicies,  wliich  color  only  < an 

inodel Objects  never  present  themselves  as  silhouettes,  but,  so  to 

say  in  full  shape." 


II{  THE  NETIIEBLANDS.  71 

would  have  to  pass  many  days  in  tins  country  in 
order  to  appreciate  this  subordination  of  the  line  to 
the  spot.  A  bluish  or  gray  vapor  is  constantly  ris- 
ing from  the  canals,  the  rivers,  the  sea,  and  from  the 
saturated  soil ;  a  universal  haze  forms  a  soft  gauze 
over  objects,  even  in  the  finest  weatlier.  Flying 
scuds,  like  thin,  half-torn  white  draper}^,  float  over 
the  meadows  night  and  morning.  I  have  repeatedly 
stood  on  the  quays  of  the  Scheldt  contemplating  the 
broad,  pallid  and  slightly  rippled  water,  on  which 
float  the  dark  hulks.  The  river  shines,  and  on  its 
flat  surface  the  hazy  light  reflects  here  and  there 
unsteady  scintillations.  Clouds  ascend  constantly 
around  the  horizon,  their  pale,  leaden  hue  and  their 
motionless  files  suggesting  an  army  of  spectres,  the 
spectres  of  the  humid  soil,  like  so  many  phantoms, 
always  revived  and  bringing  back  the  eternal  show 
ers.  Towards  the  setting  sun  they  become  ruddy, 
while  their  corpulent  masses,  trellissed  all  over  with 
gold,  remind  one  of  the  damascene  copes,  the  bro- 
caded simarres  and  the  embroidered  silks  with  which 
Jordaens  and  Rubens  envelope  their  bleeding  mar- 
tyrs >nd  their  sorrowful  madonnas.     Quite  low  down 


Y2  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

oil  the  sky  the  sun  seems  an  enormous  blaze  subsiding 
into  smoke.  On  reaching  Amsterdam  or  Ostend  tlie 
impression  again  deepens  ;  both  sea  and  sky  have  no 
form ;  the  fog  and  interposed  showers  leave  nothing 
to  remember  but  colors.  The  water  changes  in  hue 
every  half  hour — now  of  a  pale  wine  tinge,  now  of  a 
chalky  whiteness,  now  yellow  like  softened  mortar, 
now  black  like  liquid  soot,  and  sometimes  of  a  som- 
bre purple  striped  with  dashes  of  green.  After  a 
few  days'  experience  you  find  that,  in  such  a  nature 
only  gradations,  contrasts  and  harmonies,  in  short, 
the  value  of  tones  is  of  any  importance. 

These  tones,  moreover,  are  full  and  rich.  A  dry 
country  is  of  a  dull  aspect;  southern  France  and 
the  whole  of  the  mountainous  portion  of  Italy  leave 
on  the  eye  no  sensation  but  that  of  a  gray  and 
yellow  checker-board.  Besides  this,  all  the  tones 
of  the  soil  and  of  buildings  are  lost  in  the  prepon- 
derating splendor  of  the  sky  and  the  all-pervading 
luminousness  of  the  atmosphere.  In  truth,  a  south- 
ern city,  and  a  Provenge  or  Tuscan  landscape  ai;e 
simply  drawings;  with  white  paper,  charcoal,  and 
the  feeble  tints  of  colored  crayons  you  can  express' 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  73 

the  whole  thing.  On  the  contrary,  in  a  country  of 
humidity  like  the  jSTetherlancls,  the  earth  is  green,  a 
quantity  of  lively  spots  diversifying  the  uniforin- 
ity  of  the  wide  prairie — sometimes  it  is  the  dark  or 
brown  color  of  the  wet  mould,  again  the  deep  red 
of  tiles  and  bricks,  again  the  white  or  rosy  coating 
of  the  fa9ades,  again  the  ruddy  spots  of  reclining 
cattle,  again  the  flickering  sheen  of  canals  and 
streams.  And  these  spots  are  not  subdued  by  the 
too  powerful  light  of  the  sky.  Contrary  to  the  dry 
country  it  is  not  the  sky  but  the  earth  which  has 
a  preponderating  influence.  In  Holland  especially, 
for  several  months,  "  there  is  no  transparency  of  at- 
mosphere; a  kind  of  opaque  vail  hovering  between 
sky  and  ground  intercepts  all  radiance.  In  winter 
darkness  seems  to  come  from  above."  *  The  rich 
colors,  accordingly,  with  which  all  terrestrial  objects 
are  clothed,  remain  unrivalled.  To  their  strength 
must  be  added  their  gradation  and  their  mobility. 
In  Italy  a  tone  remains  fixed;  the  steady  light  of  the 
sky  maintains  it  so  for  many  hours,  and  as  it  was 
yesterday  so  it  will  be  to-morrow.     Return  to  it  and 

*  W.  Burger's  "  Mutiees  cle  la  Hollande,"  p.  213. 
4 


74:  TUE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

you  will  find  it  the  same  as  you  placed  it  on  youi 
palette  a  month  before.  In  Flanders  it  varies  inces- 
santly along  with  the  variations  of  liglit  and  the  am- 
bient vapor.  Here  again,  I  should  like  to  take  you 
into  the  country  and  let  you  appreciate  yourselves 
the  original  beauty  of  the  towns  and  the  landscape. 
The  red  of  the  bricks,  the  lustrous  white  of  the 
fa9ades  are  agreeable  to  the  eye  because  they  are 
softened  by  the  grayish  atmosphere ;  against  the  neu- 
tral background  of  the  sky  extend  rows  of  peaked, 
shell-like  roofs,  all  of  deep  brown,  here  and  there  a 
gothic  gutter,  or  some  gigantic  belfry  covered  with 
elaborate  finials  and  heraldic  animals.  Frequently 
the  crenelated  cornice  of  cliimney  and  of  ridge  is 
reflected  as  it  glows  in  a  canal  or  in  an  arm  of  the 
sea.  Outside  the  cities,  as  within  them,  all  is 
material  for  pictures — you  have  nothing  to  do  but 
to  copy.  The  universal  green  of  the  country  is  nei- 
ther crude  nor  monotonous  ;  it  is  tinted  by  diverse 
degrees  of  maturity  of  foliage  and  herbage  and  by 
the  various  densities  and  perpetual  changes  of  hazi- 
ness and  clouds.  It  has  for  complement  or  for  relief 
the  blackness  of  clouds  whicli  suddenly  melt  away 


IJV  THE  NETnERLANDS.  75 

in  transient  showers,  the  grayness  of  scattered  and 
ragged  banks  of  fog,  the  vague,  bluish  network 
envelo^Ding  distances,  the  sparkling  of  flickering 
light  arrested  in  flying  scuds — sometimes  the  daz- 
zling satin  of  a  motionless  cloud,  or  some  abrupt 
opening  through  which  the  azure  2')enetrates.  A  sky 
which  is  thus  filled  up,  thus  mobile,  thus  adapted 
to  harmonizing,  varying  and  emphasizing  the  tones 
of  the  earth,  affords  a  colorist  school.  Here,  as  at 
Venice,  art  has  followed  nature,  the  hand  having 
been  forcibly  guided  by  optical  sensations. 

If,  however,  the  analogies  of  climate  have  endowed 
the  Venetian  eye  and  tliat  of  the  inhabitant  of  the 
Netherlands  with  an  analogous  education,  differences 
of  climate  have  given  them  a  different  education. 
The  Netherlands  are  situated  three  hundred  leagues 
to  the  north  of  Venice.  The  atmosphere  there  is 
colder,  rains  more  frequent,  and  the  sun  the  oftenest 
concealed.  Hence  a  natural  gamut  of  colors,  which 
has  provoked  a  corresponding  artificial  gamut.  A 
full  light  being  rare,  objects  do  not  reflect  the  im- 
print of  the  sun.  You  do  not  meet  with  those  golden 
tones,  that  magnificent  ruddiness  so  frequent  in  the 


76  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

monuments  of  Italy.  The  water  is  not  of  that  deep 
Bea-green  resembling  silkiness,  as  in  the  lagoons  of 
Venice.  The  fields  and  trees  have  not  that  solid  and 
vigorous  tone  visible  in  the  verdure  of  Yerona  and 
Padua.  The  herbage  is  pale  and  softened,  the  water 
dull  or  dark,  the  flesh  white,  now  pink  like  a  flower 
grown  in  the  shade,  now  rubicund  after  exposure  to 
the  weather  and  rendered  coarse  by  food,  generally 
yellow  and  flabby,  sometimes,  in  Holland,  pallid  and 
inanimate  and  of  a  waxy  tone.  The  tissues  of  the 
living  organism,  whether  man,  animal  or  plant,  im 
bibe  too  much  fluid,  and  lack  the  ripening  power  of 
sunshine.  This  is  why,  if  we  compare  the  two  schools 
of  painting,  we  find  a  diflerence  in  the  general  tone. 
Examine,  in  any  gallery,  the  Venetian  school,  and 
afterwards  the  Flemish  school ;  pass  from  Canaletto 
and  Guardi  to  Ruysdael,  Paul  Potter,  Hobbema, 
Adrian  Van  der  Velde,  Teniers  and  Ostade ;  from 
Titian  and  Veronese  to  Rubens,  Van  Dyck  and  Rem- 
brandt, and  consult  your  optical  impressions.  On 
going  from  the  former  to  the  latter,  color  loses  a  por- 
tion of  its  warmth.  Shadowed,  ruddy  and  autumnal 
tones  disappear;  you  see  the  fiery  furnace  envelop* 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  77 

ing  the  Assumptions  going  out ;  flesh  becomes  of  the 
whiteness  of  milk  or  snow,  the  deep  purple  of  dra- 
peries grows  lighter,  and  paler  silks  have  cooler  re- 
flections. The  intense  brown  which  faintly  impreg- 
nates foliage,  the  powerful  reds  gilding  sunlit  dis- 
tances, the  tones  of  veined  marble,  ametliyst  and 
sapphire  with  which  watei'  is  resplendent,  all  decline, 
in  order  to  give  place  to  the  deadened  whiteness  of 
expanded  vapor,  the  bluish  glow  of  misty  twilight, 
the  slaty  reflections  of  the  ocean,  the  turbid  hue  of 
rivers,  the  pallid  verdure  of  the  fields,  and  the  gray- 
ish atmosphere  of  household  interiors. 

Between  these  new  tones  there  is  established  a 
new  harmony.  Sometimes  a  full  light  falls  upon 
objects,  and  to  which  they  are  not  accustomed ;  the 
green  campagna,  the  red  roofs,  the  polished  fa9ades 
and  the  satiny  flesh  flushed  with  blood  show  extra- 
ordinary brilliancy.  They  are  adapted  to  the  sub- 
dued light  of  a  northerly  and  humid  country ;  they 
have  not  been  transformed  as  at  Venice  by  the  slow 
scorching  of  the  sun  ;  beneath  this  irruption  of  lumi- 
nousness  their  tones  become  too  vivid,  almost  crude ; 
they  vibrate  together  like  the  blasts  of  trumpets, 


78  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

leaving  on  the  mind  and  senses  an  impression  of 
energetic  and  boisterous  joyousness.  Such  is  the 
coloring  of  the  Flemish  painters  who  love  the  full 
light  of  day.  Rubens  furnishes  us  with  the  best 
example;  if  his  restored  canvasses  in  the  Louvre 
represent  his  work  to  us  as  it  left  his  hands,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  he  did  not  discipline  his  eyes ;  in  any  event 
liis  color  lacks  the  rich  and  mellow  harmony  of  the 
Venetian ;  the  greatest  extremes  meet ;  the  snowy 
<vhiteness  of  flesh,  the  sanguine  red  of  the  draperies, 
the  dazzling  lustre  of  silks  have  their  full  force  and 
are  not  united,  tempered  and  enveloped,  as  at  Yen- 
ice,  in  that  amber  tint  which  prevents  contrasts  from 
being  discordant  and  efiects  from  being  too  startling. 
Sometimes,  on  the  contrary,  the  light  is  feeble  or 
nearly  gone,  which  is  commonly  the  case,  and  espe- 
cially in  Holland.  Objects  issue  painfully  out  of 
shadow;  they  are  almost  lost  in  their  surroundings  ; 
at  evening,  in  a  cellar,  beneath  a  lamp,  in  an  apart- 
ment into  which  a  dying  ray  from  a  window  glides, 
they  are  effaced  and  seem  to  be  only  more  intense 
darks  in  a  universal  duskiness.  The  eye  is  led  to 
noticing  these   gradations  of  obscurity,  this  vague 


/lY  THE  NETHERLANDS.  79 

train  of  light  mingling  with  shadow,  the  remains  of 
brightness  clinging  to  the  lingering  lustre  of  the  fur- 
niture, a  reflection  from  a  greenish  window-sash,  a 
piece  of  embroidery,  a  pearl,  some  golden  spark 
astray  upon  a  necklace.  Having  become  sensitive  to 
these  delicacies,  the  painter,  instead  of  uniting  the 
extremes  of  the  gamut,  simply  selects  the  beginning 
of  it ;  his  entire  picture,  except  in  one  point,  is  in 
shadow;  tlie  concert  lie  offers  us  is  a  continuous  sor- 
dine in  which  now  and  then  occurs  some  brilliant 
passage.  He  thus  discloses  unknown  harmonies, 
those  of  chiaroscuro,  those  of  modeling,  those  of 
emotion,  all  of  them  infinite  and  penetrating ;  using 
a  daub  of  dirty  yellow,  or  of  wine  lees,  or  a  mixed 
gray,  or  vague  darks,  here  and  there  accentuated  by 
a  vivid  spot,  he  succeeds  in  stirring  the  very  depths 
of  our  nature.  Herein  consists  the  last  great  pic- 
turesque creation ;  it  is  through  this  that  painting 
nowadays  most  powerfully  addresses  the  modern 
mind,  and  this  is  the  coloring  with  which  the  light 
of  Holland  supplied  the  genius  of  Rembrandt. 

You  have  seen  the  seed,  the  plant  and  the  flower. 
A  race  with  a  genius  totally  opposed  to  that  of  the 


80  ART  IN  THE  NETHERLANDS. 

Latin  peoples  makes  for  itself,  after  and  alongside  of 
them  its  place  in  the  world.  Among  the  numerous 
nations  of  this  race,  one  there  is  in  which  a  special 
territory  and  climate  develope  a  particular  character 
predisposing  it  to  art  and  to  a  certain  phase  of  art. 
Painting  is  born  with  it,  lasts,  becomes  complete, 
and  the  physical  Tnilleu  surrounding  it,  like  the 
national  genius  which  founds  it,  give  to  and  im- 
pose upon  it  its  subjects,  its  types  and  its  coloring. 
Such  are  the  remote  preparatives,  the  profound 
causes,  the  general  conditions  which  have  nourished 
this  sap,  directed  this  vegetation,  and  produced  the 
final  efflorescence.  It  only  remains  to  us  now  to 
expose  historical  events,  the  diversity  and  succession 
of  which  have  brought  about  the  successive  and 
diverse  phases  of  the  great  flowering  epoch. 


PAET  II. 
HISTOEIO  EPOCHS. 


AST  m  THE  NETHERLANDS.  83 


I. 

We  find  four  distinct  periods  in  the  pictorial  art  of 
the  Netherlands,  and,  through  a  remarkable  coinci- 
dence, each  corresponds  to  a  distinct  historic  period. 
Here,  as  everywhere,  art  translates  life;  the  talent 
and  taste  of  the  painter  change  at  the  same  time  and 
in  the  same  sense  as  the  habits  and  sentiments  of  the 
public.  Just  as  each  profound  geological  revolution 
brings  with  it  its  own  fauna  and  flora,  so  does  each 
great  transformation  of  society  and  intellect  bring 
with  it  its  ideal  figures.  In  this  respect  our  galleries 
of  art  resemble  museums,  the  imaginary  creations 
they  contain  being,  like  living  organisms,  both  the 
fruit  and  the  index  of  their  surroundings. 

The  first  period  of  art  lasts  about  a  century  and  a 
half,  and  extends  from  Hubert  Van  Eyck  to  Quintin 
Matsys  (1400-1530).  It  issues  from  a  renaissance, 
that  is  to  say,  from  a  great  development  of  pros- 
perity, wealth  and  intellect.  Here,  as  in  Italy,  the 
cities  at  an  early  period  are  flourishing,  and  almost 
free.     I  have  already  stated  to  you  that  in  the  thir- 


8-1  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

teenth  century  serfdom  was  abolished  in  Flanders, 
and  that  the  guilds  to  manufacture  salt  "for  the  pur- 
pose of  bringing  under  cultivation  marshy  grounds," 
ascend  to  the  Roman  epoch.  From  the  seventh  and 
ninth  centuries,  Bruges,  Antwerp  and  Ghent  are 
"  ports,"  or  privileged  markets ;  they  carry  on  com- 
merce on  a  large  scale ;  they  fit  out  cruisers  for  the 
whale  fishery ;  they  serve  as  the  entrepots  of  the 
North  and  the  South.  Prosperous  people,  well  sup- 
plied with  arms  and  provisions,  accustomed  through 
association  and  activity  to  foresight  and  enterprise, 
are  better  qualified  to  protect  themselves  than  mis- 
erable serfs  scattered  about  in  defenceless  villao^es. 
Their  great  populous  cities  with  narrow  streets,  and 
a  saturated  soil  intersected  with  deep  canals,  are  not 
a  suitable  ground  for  the  cavalry  of  barons.*  Hence 
it  is  that  the  feudal  net,  so  close  and  so  tightly 
drawn  over  all  Europe,  had,  in  Flanders,  to  enlarge 
its  meshes.  In  vain  did  the  Count  appeal  for  aid  to 
his  suzerain,  the  French  king,  and  urge  his  Burgun 
dian  chivalry  against  the  cities  ;  overcome  at  Mons- 
en-Puelle,  at   Cassel,   at   Rosebecque,  at   Othee,  at 

*  Battle  of  Courtenay,  1302. 


AY  THE  KETUERLANDS.  85 

Gavre,  at  Brustliem,  at  Liege,  they  always  recover 
themselves,  and  from  revolt  to  revolt  preserve  the 
best  portion  of  their  liberties,  even  under  the  prin- 
ces of  the  house  of  Austria.  The  fourteenth  century 
is  the  heroic  and  tragic  epoch  of  Flanders.  She  pos- 
sesses brewers  like  Arteveldt,  who  are  tribunes,  dic- 
tators and  captains,  and  who  end  life  on  the  field  of 
battle  or  are  assassinated ;  civil  war  is  mixed  up  with 
foreign  war ;  people  fight  from  city  to  city,  trade 
against  trade,  and  man  to  man ;  there  are  fourteen 
hundred  murders  in  Ghent  in  one  year ;  the  stores 
of  energy  are  so  great  that  she  survives  all  ills  and 
sustains  all  efforts.  Men  seek  death  twenty  thousand 
at  a  time,  and  fall  in  heaps  before  lances  without 
giving  an  inch.  "  Banish  all  hope  of  returning  with- 
out honor,"  said  the  citizens  of  Ghent  to  the  five 
thousand  volunteers  under  Philip  Van  Arteveldt,  for 
"  so  soon  that  we  hear  that  you  are  dead  or  discom- 
fited we  shall  fire  the  city  and  destroy  ourselves  with 
our  own  hands."*  In  1384,  in  the  country  of  the 
Faur  Trades,  prisoners  refused  their  lives,  declar- 
ing that  after  death  their  bones  would  rise  up  against 

*  Froissart. 


86  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

the  French.  Fifty  years  later,  around  rebellious 
Ghent,  the  peasantry  "  chose  death  rather  than  ask 
quarter,  declaring  that  they  would  perish  as  martyrs 
in  a  fair  fight."  In  these  swarming  hives  an  abun 
dance  of  food  and  habits  of  personal  activity  main- 
tain courage,  turbulence,  audacity  and  even  inso- 
lence, all  excesses  of  brutal  and  boundless  energy ; 
these  weavers  were  men,  and  when  we  encounter 
man  we  may  expect  soon  to  encounter  the  arts. 

An  interval  of  pros])erity  at  this  time  was  suffi- 
cient; under  this  ray  of  sunshine  the  flowering  thus 
maturing  is  perfected.  At  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
century  Flanders,  with  Italy,  is  the  most  industri- 
ous, the  wealthiest  and  most  flourishing  country  in 
Europe.*  In  1370  there  are  thirty-two  hundred 
woollen  factories  at  Malines  and  on  its  territory. 
One  of  its  merchants  carries  on  an  immense  trade 
with  Damascus  and  Alexandria.  Another,  of  Valen- 
ciennes, being  at  Paris  during  the  fair,  monopolizes 
all  provisions  exposed  for  sale  with  a  view  to  dis- 
play his  ojiulence.  Ghent  in  1389  has  one  hundred 
and  eighty-nine  thousand  men  bearing   arras ;   the 


*  Michiei's  "  Historic  de  la  Peinture  Flamande,"  Vol.  II.  p.  3. 


AY  THE  NETHERLANDS.  87 

drapers  alone  furnish  eighteen  thousand  men  in  a 
revolt ;  the  weavers  form  twenty-seven  sections,  and 
at  the  sound  of  the  great  bell,  fifty-two  corporations 
under  their  own  banners  rush  to  the  market-place. 
In  1380  tlie  goldsmiths  of  Bruges  are  numerous 
enough  to  form  in  war  time  an  entire  division  of  the 
army.  A  little  later  (Enius  Sylvius  states  that  she  is 
one  of  the  three  most  beautiful  cities  in  the  world; 
a  canal  four  leagues  and  a  half  in  length  joins  her  to 
the  sea;  a  hundred  vessels  a  day  pass  through  it. 
Bruges  was  then  what  London  is  at  the  present 
time.  Political  matters  at  this  period  attain  to  a 
sort  of  equilibrium.  The  Duke  of  Burgundy  finds 
himself  by  inheritance,  in  1 384,  sovereign  of  Flan- 
ders. The  grandeur  of  his  possessions  and  the  mul- 
tiplication of  civil  wars  during  the  minority  and 
madness  of  Charles  VI.  divorce  him  from  France ; 
he  is  no  longer,  like  the  ancient  counts,  a  dependart 
of  the  king,  domiciliated  in  Paris  and  soliciting 
aid  to  reduce  and  tax  his  Flemish  merchants.  His 
power  and  the  misfortunes  of  France  render  him 
independent.  Although  a  prince  he  belongs,  in 
Paris,  to  the  popular  party,  and  the  butchers  shout 


88  TUB  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

for  bim.  Although  a  Frenchman  his  politics  are 
Flemish,  and  when  not  in  alliance  with  the  English 
he  negotiates  Avith  them.  In  the  matter  of  money 
he  certainly  quarrels  with  his  Flemings  more  than 
once,  and  is  obliged  to  kill  a  good  many  of  them. 
But  to  one  who  is  familiar  with  the  disturbances  and 
violence  of  the  middle  ages,  the  order  and  harmony 
which  is  then  established  seem  sufficient;  at  all 
events  they  are  greater  than  ever  before.  Hence- 
forth, as  at  Florence  about  the  year  1400,  authority 
becomes  recognized  and  society  organized;  hence- 
forth, as  in  Italy  about  the  year  1400,  man  aban- 
dons the  ascetic  and  ecclesiastic  regime  that  he  may 
interest  himself  in  nature  and  enjoy  life.  The  ancient 
compression  is  relaxed ;  he  begins  to  prize  strength, 
health,  beauty  and  pleasure.  On  all  sides  we  see  the 
mediaeval  spirit  undergoing  change  and  disintegra- 
tion. An  elegant  and  refined  architecture  converts 
stone  into  lace,  festooning  churches  with  pinnacles, 
trefoils  and  intricate  mullions,  and  in  such  a  fashion 
that  the  honey-combed,  gilded  and  flowering  edifice 
becomes  a  vast  and  romantic  casket,  a  product  of 
fancy  rather  than  of  faith,  less  calculated  to  excite 


Z.Y  THE  NETHERLANDS.  89 

piety  than  wonder.  In  like  manner  chivalry  become8 
a  mere  parade.  The  nobles  frequent  the  Valois 
court,  devote  themselves  to  pleasure,  to  "  pretty  con- 
ceits "  and  especially  to  the  "  conceits  of  love."  In 
Chaucer  and  in  Froissart  we  are  spectators  of  their 
pomp  —  their  tourneys,  their  processions  and  their 
banquets,  of  the  new  reign  of  frivolity  and  fashion, 
of  the  creations  of  an  infatuated  and  licentious  ima- 
gination, of  their  extravagant  and  overcharged  cos- 
tumes— robes  twelve  ells  long,  tight  hose  and  Bohe- 
mian jackets  with  sleeves  falling  to  the  ground,  shoes 
terminating  in  the  claws,  horns  and  tail  of  the  scor- 
pion, suits  embroidered  with  letters,  animals,  and 
with  musical  notes  enabling  one  to  read  and  sing 
a  song  on  the  owner's  back,  hoods  adorned  with 
golden  garlands  and  with  animals,  robes  covered 
with  sapphires,  rubies  and  jewelled  swallows,  each 
holding  in  its  beak  a  golden  cup  ;  one  costume  has 
fourteen  hundred  of  these  cups,  and  we  find  nine  hun- 
dred and  sixty  pearls  used  in  embroidering  a  song  on 
a  coat.  Women  in  magnificently  ornamented  veils, 
the  breast  nude,  the  head  crowned  with  huge  cones 
and  crescents,  and  dressed  in  gaudy  robes  covered 


00  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

with  the  figures  of  unicorns,  lions  and  savages,  place 
tliemselves  on  seats  representing  small  sculptured 
and  gilded  cathedrals.  The  life  of  the  court  and 
of  princes  seems  a  carnival.  When  Charles  VI. 
is  knighted  a  hall  is  prepared  in  the  abbey  of  St. 
Denis,  thirty-two  toises  (about  two  hundred  feet) 
long,  hung  in  white  and  green,  with  a  lofty  pavilion 
of  tapestry  :  here,  after  three  days  of  feasting  and 
jousting,  a  nocturnal  masked  ball  ends  in  an  orgie. 
"Many  a  damsel  forgot  herself,  many  were  the^ 
husbands  who  suffered,"  and,  in  contrast  to  this, 
showing  the  sentiments  of  the  age,  they  cele- 
brate the  funeral  of  Duguesclin  at  the  end  of  it. 
In  the  accounts  and  chronicles  of  the  period  we 
follow  the  course  of  a  broad,  golden  stream,  flowing, 
glistening,  ostentatious  and  interminable,  that  is  to 
say,  the  domestic  history  of  the  king  and  queen  and 
the  dukes  of  Orleans  and  Burgundy;  there  is  noth- 
ing but  entries  into  cities,  cavalcades,  masks,  dances, 
voluptuous  caprices,  and  the  prodigality  of  the  newly 
enriched.  The  Burgundian  and  French  chevaliers 
wlio  go  to  contend  with  Bagazet  at  Nicopolis  equip 
themselves  as  if  for  a  party  of  pleasure ;  their  ban- 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  01 

ners  and  the  trappings  of  their  horses  are  loaded 
witli  gold  and  silver,  their  dishes  are  all  of  sji"er 
plate  and  their  tents  are  of  green  satin ;  exquisite 
wines  follow  them  in  boats  on  the  Danube,  and  t'.eir 
camps  are  filled  with  courtesans.  This  excess  of 
animal  spirits,  which,  in  France,  is  mingled  with 
morbid  curiosity  and  lugubrious  fancies,  breaks  out 
in  Burgundy  into  a  grand  and  jolly  kermesse.  Philip 
the  Good  has  three  legitimate  wives,  twenty-four 
mistresses,  and  sixteen  bastards;  he  attends  to  all, 
feasting,  making  merry  and  admitting  the  towns- 
women  to  his  court ;  seeming  at  the  outset  to  be 
one  of  Jordaens'  characters.  A  Count  of  Cloves  has 
sixty-three  bastards;  the  chroniclers  in  their  narra- 
tion of  ceremonies  constantly  and  gravely  mention 
those  of  both  sexes;  the  institution  appears  to  be 
official :  seeing  them  swarming  in  this  manner,  we 
are  reminded  of  the  buxom  nurses  of  Rubens  and 
the  Gangamelles  of  Rabelais.  "  It  was,"  says  a  con- 
temporary, "a  great  pity,  this  sin  of  luxury  which 
prevailed  far  and  wide,  and  especially  amongst  prin- 
ces and  the  wedded.  .  .  lie  was  the  gentlest  com- 
panion who  was  able  to  deceive  and  possess  p>t  the 


92  THE  PIlILOSOniT  OF  ART  ^ 

same  time  more  than  one  woman  .  .  .  and  even  there 
prevailed  likewise  the  sin  of  luxury  among  the  prel- 
ates of  the  Church  and  among  all  Church  people."* 
Jacques  de  Croy,  archbishop  of  Cambray,  officiated 
pontifically  Avith  his  thirty-six  bastards  and  bas- 
tards' sons,  and  kept  in  reserve  a  sum  of  money  for 
those  to  come.  At  the  third  marriage  of  Philip  the 
Good  the  gala  seems  to  be  a  Gamache's  wedding 
commanded  by  Gargantua  ;  the  streets  of  Bruges 
were  hung  with  tapestry ;  for  eight  days  and  eight 
niglits  a  stone  lion  spurted  Khine  wine,  while  a  stone 
stag  discharged  Beaune  Burgundy ;  at  meal  times 
an  unicorn  poured  forth  rosewater  or  malvoisie.  On 
tlie  entry  of  the  Dauphin  into  the  city,  eight  hun- 
dred merchants  of  divers  nations  advanced  to  meet 
him,  all  in  garments  of  silk  and  velvet.  At  another 
ceremonial  the  duke  appears  with  a  saddle  and  bri- 
dle covered  with  precious  stones  ;  "  nine  pages  cov- 
ered with  plumes  of  jewels  "  followed  behind  him, 

*  "  C'etait  grand'  pitie  que  le  peclie  de  luxare  qui  regnait  moult  et 
fort,  et  par  especial  esprinces  et  gens  maries.  Et  etait  le  plus  gentil 
compagnon  qui  i)lus  d'uue  femme  eavait  trompor  et  avoir  au  moment .  .  . 
et  meme  regnait  iceliii  peclie  de  luxure  es  prelats  de  I'Eglise  et  en  toua 
gens  d'Eglise." 


m  THE  NETHERLANDS.  93 

and  "  one  of  tlie  said  pages  bore  a  salad  which  was 
stated  to  be  of  the  value  of  one  hundred  thousand 
gold  crowns."  Another  time  the  jewels  worn  by 
the  duke  are  estimated  at  a  million.  I  wish  to 
describe  one  of  these  fetes  to  you ;  like  those  of 
Florence  at  the  same  epoch  they  bear  witness  to  tho 
picturesque  and  decorative  tastes  which  here  as  in 
Florence  produced  pictorial  art.  One  of  them  took 
place  at  Lille  under  Philip  the  Good,  the  Festival  o^ 
the  Pheasant,  which  may  be  compared  with  the  tri- 
umph of  Lorenzo  de  Medici;  you  will  observe  here 
in  a  hundred  naiv^e  details  the  resemblances  and  the 
difterences  of  the  two  societies,  and  accordingly  of 
their  culture,  their  taste  and  their  art. 

The  Duke  of  Cleves  had  given  a  "  superb  banquet" 
at  Lille,  at  which  were  present  "  Monseigneur,"  (of 
Burgundy)  "  together  with  the  lords,  ladies  and  dam- 
sels of  his  house."  At  this  banquet  there  was  seen 
on  the  table  an  "  entremets,"  that  is  to  say,  a  decora- 
tion representing  "  a  ship  with  lifted  sails,  in  which 
was  a  knight  erect  and  armed  ....  and  before  it  a 
silver  swan,  bearing  on  his  neck  a  gold  collar,  to 
which  hung  a  long  chain,  with  which  the  said  swan 


^i  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

^»ppeared  to  draw  the  vessel,  and  on  the  back  of  the 
said  vessel  stood  a  castle  most  skilfully  contrived." 
On  this  allegorical  macliine  the  Duke  of  Cloves, 
Knight  of  the  Swan,  and  "  slave  of  the  fair,"  caused 
proclamation  to  be  made  that  he  might  be  encoun- 
tered in  the  lists,  "  armed  in  jousting  harness  and  in 
war  saddle,  and  that  he  ^vho  should  do  the  best  would 
gain  a  rich  golden  swan,  chained  with  a  chain  of  gold, 
and  on  the  end  of  this  chain  a  magnificent  ruby." 

Ten  days  after  this  the  Count  d'Etampes  gave  the 
second  act  of  the  fairy  spectacle.  Bear  in  mind  that 
the  second  as  well  as  the  first  act  with  all  the  others 
began  with  a  feast.  In  this  court  life  is  gross,  and 
people  never  tire  of  bumpers.  "  When  the  *  entre- 
mets' were  removed  there  issued  from  an  apartment  a 
multitude  of  torches,  and  after  these  there  appeared 
an  armed  attendant  clad  in  liis  coat  of  mail,  and 
after  him  two  knights  clad  in  long  velvet  robes 
furred  with  sable,  with  no  covering  to  the  head,  each 
one  bearing  in  his  hand  a  gay  hood  of  flowers  ; "  after 
them,  on  a  palfrey  caparisoned  in  blue  silk,  "  a  most 
beautiful  lady  appeared,  young,  of  the  age  of  twelve 
years,  attired  in  a  robe  of  violet  silk,  richly  embroi- 


^  IN  THE  NETUERLANDS.  95 

dered  and  j^added  with  gold,"  she  is  "  the  princess 
of  joy."  Three  squires  clothed  in  vermilion  silk  lead 
her  up  to  the  duke,  singing  a  song  as  they  intro- 
duce her.  She  descends,  and  kneeling  on  the  table 
she  places  on  his  brow  a  crown  of  flowers.  At  this 
moment  the  joust  is  proclaimed,  the  drums  beat,  a 
pursuivant-at-arms  appears  in  a  mailed  suit  covered 
with  swans,  and  then  enters  the  Duke  of  Cleves, 
Knight  of  the  Swan,  richly  armed,  seated  on  a  horse 
caparisoned  in  white  damask  and  fringed  with  gold ; 
he  leads  by  a  gold  cliain  a  large  swan  accompanied 
by  two  mounted  archers;  behind  him  march  children 
on  horseback,  grooms,  knights  armed  with  lances, 
all,  like  himself,  in  white  damask  fringed  with  gold. 
Toison  d'Or,  the  herald,  presents  them  to  the  duch- 
ess. The  other  knights  then  defile  before  her  on 
their  horses,  decked  with  gray  and  crimson  cloth  of 
gold,  cloth  decked  Avith  small  golden  bells,  crimson 
velvet  trimn^ed  with  sable,  violet  velvet  fringed  with 
gold  and  silk,  and  black  velvet  studded  with  golden 
tear-drops.  Suppose  that  the  great  personages  of 
state  of  the  present  day  should  amuse  themselves 
with   dressing  up  like  actors  at  the  opera    and  in 


96  THE  PUILOSOPHY  OF  AIIT 

making  passes  like  circus-riders !  The  oddity  of 
such  a  supposition  enables  you  to  appreciate  the 
liveliness  of  the  picturesque  instinct  at  that  day,  as 
well  as  the  taste  for  outward  display  and  the  feeble- 
ness of  both  at  present. 

These,  however,  were  only  preludes.  Eight  days 
after  the  tourney  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  gave  his  fes- 
tival, which  surpassed  all  the  others.  A  vast  hall, 
liung  with  tapestry  representing  the  career  of  Her- 
cules, had  five  doors,  guarded  by  archers  dressed  in 
robes  of  gray  and  black  cloth.  Around  the  sides 
extended  five  platforms  or  galleries,  occupied  by  for- 
eign spectators,  noble  personages  and  ladies,  most 
of  these  being  disguised.  In  their  midst  arose  "a 
lofty  buffet,  loaded  with  vessels  of  gold  and  silver, 
and  crystal  vases  garnished  with  gold  and  precious 
stones."  And  erect,  in  the  centre  of  the  hall,  stood 
a  great  pillar,  bearing  "  a  female  image  with  hair 
falling  to  her  loins,  her  head  covered  with  a  very  ricli 
hat,  and  her  breast  spouting  hypocras  so  long  as  the 
supper  lasted."  Three  gigantic  tables  were  arranged, 
each  one  being  adorned  with  several  "  entremets," 
f,o  many  huge  machines  reminding  one,  on  a  gvand 


.71V   THE  NETHERLANDS.  07 

scale,  of  the  toy  presents  given  nowadaj^s  to  the 
cliihlren  of  the  wealthy.  The  men  of  this  time,  in- 
-""eed,  in  curiosity  and  in  flights  of  the  imagination 
are  nothing  but  children ;  their  strongest  desire  is 
to  amuse  the  eye ;  they  sport  with  life  as  with  a 
magic  lantern.  The  two  principal  "entremets"  con- 
sist of  a  monstrous  pie,  containing  twenty-eight  per- 
sons, "  alive,"  playing  on  musical  instruments,  also  a 
*'  church  with  windows  and  glass,  provided  with  four 
choristers  and  a  ringing  bell."  Besides  these  there 
were  twenty  more, — a  great  castle,  its  fosses  filled 
with  orange-water,  and  on  a  tower  the  fairy  Melu- 
sina ;  a  windmill  with  archers  and  cross-bowmen  fir- 
ing at  mark;  a  cask  in  a  vineyard  with  two  fluids, 
one  bitter  and  the  other  sweet ;  a  vast  desert  with  a 
lion  and  serpent  contending;  a  savage  on  a  camel;  a 
clown  prancing  on  a  bear  amidst  rocks  and  glacie»'s; 
a  lake  surrounded  by  cities  and  castles ;  a  carrack  at 
anchor,  bearing  rigging,  masts  and  seamen  ;  a  beau- 
tiful fountain  of  earth  and  lead,  with  small  trees  of 
glass  in  leaf  and  blooming,  and  a  St.  Andrew  with 
his  cross;  a  fountain  of  rose-water,  representing  a 
naked  infant  in  the  attitude  of  the  "  Mannekenpiss  '* 


98  THE  PHILOSOPUY  OF  ART 

of  Brussels.  You  would  imagine  yourself  in  a  var- 
iety store  at  New  Year  time.  Tliis  pele-mele  of  mo- 
tionless decoration  did  not  suffice  ;  over  and  above 
this  an  active  parade  was  necessary ;  we  see  defiling 
in  turn  a  dozen  of  interludes,  and  in  the  intervals  the 
church  and  the  pie  keep  busy  the  ears  at  the  same 
time  as  the  eyes  of  the  guests  ;  the  bell  rings  with 
all  its  might ;  a  shepherd  plays  on  a  bag-pipe ;  little 
children  sing  a  song ;  organs,  German  cornets,  trum- 
pets, glees,  flutes,  a  lute  with  voices,  drums,  hunting 
horns  and  the  yelping  of  hounds  succeed  each  other. 
Meanwhile  a  rearing  horse  appears,  richly  covered 
with  vermilion  silk,  monnted  by  two  trumpeters 
"  seated  backward  and  without  saddle,"  led  by  six- 
teen knights  in  long  robes  ;  then  a  hobgoblin,  half 
man,  half  griffon,  who,  mounted  on  a  boar  and  car- 
rying a  man,  advances  with  a  target  and  two  darts  ; 
then  a  large  white  mechanical  stag,  harnessed  in 
silk,  with  golden  horns,  and  bearing  on  his  back  a 
child  in  a  short  dress  of  crimson  velvet,  who  sino:s 
while  the  stag  performs  tlie  bass.  All  these  figures 
make  the  circuit  of  the  table,  while  the  last  invention 
especially  delights  the  company.     A  flying  dragon 


JiV"  THE  NETHERLANDS.  99 

passes  tlirough  the  air,  liis  fiery  scales  liglitir.g  up 
the  recesses  of  the  gothic  ceiling.  A  heron  and 
two  falcons  are  loosed,  and  the  vanquished  bird  is 
presented  to  the  Duke.  Trumpets  sound  a  blast 
behind  a  curtain,  which  curtain  being  withdrawn 
discloses  Jason  reading  a  letter  from  Medea,  then 
combating  the  bulls,  then  killing  the  serpent,  then 
ploughing  the  ground  and  sowing  the  monster's  teeth 
fi-om  which  arises  a  crop  of  armed  men.  At  this 
jDoint  the  interest  of  the  fete  deepens.  It  becomes 
a  romance  of  chivalry,  a  scene  from  Amadis,  or  one 
of  Don  Quixote's  dreams  in  action.  A  giant  arrives 
bearing  a  pike  and  turban  and  leading  an  elephant 
caparisoned  in  silk  with  a  castle  on  his  back, 
and  in  this  castle  a  lady  attired  as  a  nun  and  repre- 
senting the  Holy  Church;  she  orders  a  halt,  pro- 
claims her  name,  and  summons  the  company  to  the 
crusade.  Thereupon  Toison  d'Or,  with  his  officers 
of  arms,  fetches  a  live  pheasant  wearing  a  golden 
collar  decked  with  precious  stones;  the  Duke  swears 
npon  the  pheasant  to  succor  Christendom  against 
the  Turk,  and  all  the  knights  do  likewise,  each  in 
a  document  of  the  style  of  Galaor,  and  this  is  the 


100  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

pheasant's  vow.  The  fete  terminates  with  a  mystic 
and  moral  ball.  At  the  sound  of  instruments  and 
by  the  light  of  torches  a  lady  in  white,  bearing  the 
name  of  the  "  Grace  of  God  "  on  her  shoulder,  ap- 
proaches the  Duke,  recites  a  stanza  and,  on  retir- 
ing, leaves  with  him  the  twelve  virtues — Faith, 
Charity,  Justice,  Reason,  Temperance,  Strength, 
Truth,  Liberality,  Diligence,  Hope  and  Yalor — each 
led  by  a  knight  in  a  crimson  pourpoint,  the  sleeves 
of  which  are  of  satin  embroidered  with  foliage  and 
jewelry.  They  betake  themselves  to  dancing  with 
their  knights,  crowning  the  Count  of  Charolais  the 
victor  in  the  lists,  and,  upon  the  announcement  of 
a  new  tourney,  the  ball  ends  at  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  Really  there  is  too  much  of  it ;  the  mind 
and  the  senses  both  flag ;  these  people  in  the 
way  of  diversions  are  gluttons  and  not  epicureans. 
This  uproar  and  this  profusion  of  quaint  conceits 
shows  us  a  rude  society,  a  race  of  the  North,  an 
incipient  civilization  still  infantile  and  barbarous ; 
the  grandeur  and  simplicity  of  Italian  taste  is 
wanting  in  these  contemporaries  of  the  Medicis. 
And  yet  the  groundwork  of  their  habits  and  imag 


Ili  THE  NETHERLANDS.  IQl 

matioii  is  the  same;  here,  as  with  the  chariots  and 
joomp  of  tlie  Florentine  carnival,  the  legends,  his- 
tory and  philosophy  of  the  middle  ages  take  shape; 
moral  abstractions  assume  visible  form ;  the  vir- 
tues become  actual  women;  they  are  accordingly 
tempted  to  paint  and  sculpture  them  ;  all  decoration, 
in  effect,  consists  of  reliefs  and  paintings.  The 
symbolic  age  gives  way  to  the  picturesque  age ; 
the  intellect  is  no  longer  content  with  a  scholastic 
entity ;  it  seeks  to  contemplate  a  living  form,  the 
human  mind  finding  it  necessary  for  its  complete- 
ness to  be  translated  to  the  eye  by  a  work  of  art. 

But  this  work  of  art  bears  no  resemblance  to  that 
of  Italy  for  the  reason  that  the  culture  and  direction 
of  the  intellect  are  different ;  this  is  evident  in  read- 
ing the  simple  and  dull  verses  recited  by  the  "Holy 
Cliurch  "  and  the  ''  Virtues,"  an  empty,  senile  poetry, 
the  worn-out  babble  of  the  trouveres,  a  rattle  of 
rhymed  phrases  in  which  the  rythm  is  as  flimsy  as 
the  idea.  The  Netherlands  never  had  a  Dante,  a 
Petrarch,  a  Boccaccio,  a  Yillani.  The  mind,  less 
precocious  and  further  removed  from  Latin  tradi- 
tions, remained  a  longer  time  subject  to  mediaeval 


102  THE  PHILOSOFHT  OF  ART 

discipline  and  inertia.  There  were  no  sceptical 
Averrhoeists  and  physicians  like  those  described  by 
Petrarch;  there  were  no  humanist  restorers  of 
ancient  literature,  almost  pagans,  like  those  who  sur- 
rounded Lorenzo  de  Medici.  Christian  faith  and 
sentiment  are  much  more  active  and  tenacious  here 
than  in  Venice  or  in  Florence.  They  continue  to 
subsist  under  the  sensual  pomp  of  the  Burgundian 
court.  If  there  are  epicureans  in  social  matters  there 
are  none  in  theory;  the  most  gallant  serve  religion, 
as  the  ladies,  through  a  principle  of  honor.  In  1398 
seven  hundred  seigniors  of  Burgundy  and  France 
enlist  in  the  crusade  ;  all,  save  twenty-seven  die  at 
Nicopolis,  and  Boucicaut  calls  them  "  blessed  and 
happy  martyrs."  You  have  just  witnessed  the  buf- 
foonery of  Lille  which  ended  in  a  solemn  vow  to  war 
with  the  infidels.  Here  and  there  scattered  traits 
show  the  persistency  of  the  primitive  devotion.  In 
1477,  in  the  neighboring  town  of  ISTuremburg,  Mar- 
tin Koetzel,  a  pilgrim  in  Palestine,  counts  the  steps 
between  Golgotha  and  the  house  of  Pilate,  that  he 
may,  on  his  return,  build  seven  stations  and  a  cal- 
vary between  his  own  house  and  the  cemetery  of  hia 


ZZV^  THE  NETHERLANDS.  103. 

native  town  ;  losing  his  measure  he  repeats  the  jour' 
ney,  and  this  time  has  the  work  executed  by  the 
sculptor,  Adam  Kraft.  In  the  Low  Countries,  as  in 
Germany,  the  middle  class,  a  sedate  and  somewhat 
dull  people,  restricted  to  their  own  narrow  circle  and 
attached  to  ancient  usages,  preserve  much  better 
than  court-seigniors  the  faith  and  the  fervor  of  the 
middle  ages;  Their  literature  bears  witness  to  this. 
The  moment  it  takes  an  original  turn,  that  is  to  say 
from  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  it  furnishes 
ample  testimony  to  the  practical,  civic  and  bourgeois 
spirit,  with  abundant  evidences  of  pious  fervor ;  on 
the  one  hand  appear  moral  maxims,  pictures  of  do- 
mestic life,  and  historic  and  political  poems  relating 
to  recent  and  true  occurences ;  on  the  other,  lyric 
laudation  of  the  Virgin,  and  mystic  and  tender  poetic 
effusions.*  In  fine,  the  national  genius,  which  is 
Germanic,  inclines  much  more  to  faith  than  to  incre- 
dulity. Through  the  Lollards  and  the  mystics  of 
the  middle  ages,  also  through  the  iconoclasts  and 
the  innumerable  martyrs  of  the  sixteenth  century,  it 
turns  in  the  direction  of  Protestant  ideas.  Left  to 
*  Uorse  Belgicae. 


104  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

itself  it  would  have  developed  not,  as  in  Italy,  into 
a  pagan  renaissance,  but,  as  in  Germany,  into  a 
recrudescence  of  Christianity.  The  art,  moreover, 
which,  of  all  the  others,  best  reveals  the  cravings 
of  the  popular  imagination,  architecture,  remains 
gothic  and  Christian  up  to  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century;  Italian  and  classic  importations  do  not 
affect  it ;  the  style  gets  to  be  complicated  and  effem- 
inate, but  the  art  does  not  change.  It  prevails  not 
only  in  the  churches  but  in  laic  edifices ;  the  town- 
halls  of  Bruges,  Louvain,  Brussels,  Liege  and  Au- 
denarde  show  to  what  extent  it  was  cherished  not 
only  by  the  priesthood  but  by  the  nation ;  the 
people  remained  faithful  to  it  to  the  end  :  the  town- 
hall  of  Audenarde  was  begun  seven  years  after  the 
death  of  Raphael.  In  1536,  in  the  hands  of  a  Flem- 
ish woman,  Margaret  of  Austria,  the  church  of 
Brou,  the  latest  and  prettiest  flower  of  gothic  art, 
bloomed  out  in  its  perfection.  Sum  up  all  these 
indications  and  consider,  in  the  protraiture  of  the 
day,  the  personages  themselves,*  the  donors,  abbes> 

*  See  in  the  Musees  of  Antwerp,  Brussels  and  Bruges,  the  triptycha 
•whose  doors  present  entire  families  of  the  period. 


IN  THE  NErilERLANDS.  105 

burgomasters,  townspeople  and  matrons,  so  grave 
and  so  simple  in  their  Sunday  clothes  and  spotless 
linen,  with  their  rigid  air  and  their  expression  of 
deep  and  settled  faith,  and  you  will  recognize  that 
here  the  sixteentli  century  renaissance  took  place 
within  religious  limits,  that  man  in  making  the  pres- 
ent life  more  attractive  never  lost  sight  of  that  to 
come,  and  that  his  picturesque  invention  is  the  man- 
ifestation of  a  vivacious  Christianity  instead  of  ex- 
pressing, as  in  Italy,  a  restored  paganism. 

A  Flemish  renaissance  underneath  Christian  ideas, 
such,  in  eflect,  is  the  t\vo-f«ld  nature  of  art  under 
Hubert  and  John  Yan  Eyck,  Roger  Van  der  Weyde, 
Hemling  and  Quintin  Matsys ;  and  from  these  two 
characteristics  proceed  all  the  others.  On  the  one 
hand,  artists  take  interest  in  actual  life;  their  figures 
are  no  longer  symbols  like  the  illuminations  of 
ancient  missals,  nor  purified  spirits  like  the  Madon- 
nas of  the  school  of  Cologne,  but  living  beings  and 
bodies.  They  attend  to  anatomy,  the  perspective  is 
exact,  the  minutest  details  are  rendered  of  stuiFs,  of 
architecture,  of  accessories  and  of  landscape;    the 

relief  is  strong,  and  the  entire  scene  stamps  itself  on 
5* 


100  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

the  eye  and  on  the  mind  with  extraordinary  force 
and  sense  of  stability ;  the  greatest  masters  of  com- 
ing times  are  not  to  surpass  them  in  all  this,  nor 
even  go  so  far.  Nature  evidently  is  now  discovered 
by  them.  The  scales  fall  from  their  eyes ;  they  have 
just  mastered,  almost  in  a  flash,  the  proportions,  the 
structure  and  the  coloring  of  visible  realities;  and 
moreover,  they  delight  in  them.  Consider  the  superb 
copes  wrought  in  gold  and  decked  with  diamonds, 
the  embroidered  silks,  the  flowered  and  dazzling 
diadems  with  which  they  ornament  their  saints  and 
divine  personages,*  all  of  which  represents  the  pomp 
of  the  Burgundian  court.  Look  at  the  calm  and 
transparent  water,  the  bright  meadows,  the  red  and 
white  flowers,  the  blooming  trees,  the  sunny  distan- 
ces of  their  admirable  landscapes.f  Observe  their 
colorinir — the  stronsrest  and  richest  ever  seen,  the 
pure  and  full  tones  side  by  side  as  in  a  Persian  car- 
pet, and  united  solely  through  their  harmony,  the 

*  "  God  the  Father,  and  the  Virgin,"  by  Hubert  van  Eyck.  "  The  Vir- 
gin, St.  Barbara  and  St.  Catherine,"  by  Memling,  and  "  The  Entomb- 
ment," by  Quintin  Matsys. 

t  "  St.  Christopher,"  "  The  Baptism  of  Jesus,"  by  Memling  and  hia 
school.    "  The  Adoration  of  the  Lamb,"  by  the  Van  Eycks. 


ly  Tim  NETHERLANDS.  107 

superb  breaks  in  the  foldj  of  purple  mantles,  the 
azure  recesses  of  long  falling  robes,  the  green  dra- 
peries like  a  summer  field  permeated  with  sunshine, 
the  display  of  gold  skirts  trimmed  with  black,  the 
strong  light  which  warms  and  enlivens  the  whole 
scene ;  you  have  a  concert  in  wliich  each  instrument 
sounds  its  proper  note,  and  the  more  true  because 
the  more  sonorous.  They  see  the  world  on  the 
bright  side  and  make  a  holiday  of  it,  a  genuine  fete, 
similar  to  those  of  this  day,  glowing  under  a  more 
bounteous  sunlight  and  not  a  heavenly  Jerusalem 
suffused  with  supernatural  radiance  such  as  Fra 
Angelico  painted.  They  are  Flemings,  and  they 
stick  to  the  earth.  They  copy  the  real  with  scrupu- 
lous accuracy,  and, all  that  is  real — the  ornaments  of 
armor,  the  polished  glass  of  a  window,  the  scrolls  of 
a  carpet,  the  hairs  of  fur,*  the  undraped  body  of  an 
Adam  and  an  Eve,  a  canon's  massive,  wrinkled  and 
obese  features,  a  burgomaster's  or  soldier's  broad 
shoulders,  projecting  chin  and  prominent  nose,  the 


*  See  "  The  Madonna  and  St.  George,"  by  Jan  Van  Eyck,  the  An- 
twerp triptych  of  Qui n tin  Matsys,  etc.  The  "  Adam  and  Eve,"  of  JIube»*. 
Van  Eyck  at  Brussels,  and  "The  Adoration  of  the  Lamb," 


iOS  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

spindling  shanks  of  a  hangman,  the  over  large  head 
and  diminntive  limbs  of  a  child,  the  costumes  and 
furniture  of  the  age;  their  entire  work  being  a  glori- 
fication of  this  present  life.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  is  a  glorification  of  Christian  belief.  Not  only  are 
their  subjects  almost  all  of  a  religious  order,  but 
again  they  are  imbued  with  a  religious  sentiment 
which,  in  the  following  age,  is  not  to  be  found  in  the 
same  scenes.  Their  best  pictures  represent  no  actual 
event  in  sacred  history  but  a  verity  of  faith,  a  sum- 
mary of  doctrine.  Hubert  Yaii  Eyck  regards  paint- 
ing in  the  same  light  as  Simone  Memmi,  or  Taddeo 
Gaddi,  that  is  to  say,  as  an  exposition  of  higher  the- 
ology; his  figures  and  his  accessories  may  be  realis- 
tic, but  they  are  likewise  symbolic.  The  cathedral 
in  which  Roger  Van  der  Weyde  portrays  the  seven 
sacraments  is  at  once  a  material  church  and  a  spir- 
itual church ;  Christ  appears  bleeding  on  his  cross, 
while  at  the  same  time  the  priest  is  performing  mass 
at  the  altar.  The  chamber  or  portico  in  which  John 
Van  Eyck  and  Memling  place  their  kneeling  saints 
is  an  illusion  in  its  detail  and  finish,  but  the  Virgin 
on  her  throne  and  the  ano-els  who  crown  her  show 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  100 

the  believer  that  he  is  in  a  superior  reahu.  A  hie- 
rarchical symmetry  groups  personages  and  stiffens 
attilucles.  With  Hubert  Van  Eyck  the  eye  is  fixed 
and  tlie  face  impassible ;  it  is  the  eternal  immobility 
of  divine  life ;  in  heaven  all  is  fulfilled  and  time  is 
no  more.  In  other  instances,  as  with  Memling,  there 
is  the  quietude  of  absolute  faith,  the  peace  of  mind 
preserved  in  the  cloister  as  in  a  sleeping  forest,  the 
immaculate  purity,  mournful  sweetness,  the  infinite 
trust  of  the  truly  pious  nun  absorbed  with  her  own 
reveries,  and  whose  large  open  eyes  look  out  upon 
vacancy.  These  paintings,  in  turn,  are  subjects  for 
the  altar  or  private  chapel ;  they  do  not  appeal  like 
those  of  later  ages  to  grand  seigniors  whose  church- 
going  consists  of  mere  routine,  and  who  crave,  even 
in  religious  history,  pagan  pomp  and  the  torsos  of 
wrestlers ;  they  appeal  to  the  faithful,  in  order  to 
suggest  to  them  the  form  of  the  supernatural  world 
or  the  emotions  of  fervid  piety,  to  show  them  the  im- 
mutable serenity  of  beatified  saints  and  the  tender 
humility  of  the  elect;  Ruysbroeck,  Eckart,  Tauler 
and  Henry  de  Suzo,  the  theological  mystics  of  Ger~ 
many  antecedent  to  Luther,  might  here  resort.     It  is 


110  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

a  strange  siglit,  and  one  which  does  not  seem  to 
accord  with  the  sensuous  j^arade  of  the  court  and  the 
sumptuous  entries  of  the  cities.  We  find  a  similar 
contrast  between  the  profound  religious  sentiment 
of  the  Madonnas  of  Albert  Durer  and  the  worldly 
splendor  of  his  "  House  of  Maximilian."  The  reason 
is,  we  are  in  a  Germanic  country ;  the  renaissance 
of  general  prosperity  and  the  emancipation  of  the 
intellect  which  results  from  it  here  revive  Christian- 
ity instead  of  destroying  it  as  in  a  Latin  country. 


IN  THE  SBTHEBLANB3.  HI 


II- 

When  a  great  change  is  effected  in  hnraan  affairs 
it  brings  on  by  degrees  a  corresponding  change  in 
human  conceptions.  After  the  discovery  of  the  In- 
dies and  of  America,  after  the  invention  of  printing 
and  the  multiplication  of  books,  after  the  restoration 
of  classic  antiquity  and  the  Reformation  of  Luther^ 
any  conception  of  the  world  then  formed  could  nc 
longer  remain  monastic  and  mystic.  The  tender  and 
melancholy  aspiration  of  a  soul  sighing  for  the  celes- 
tial kingdom  and  humbly  subjecting  its  conduct  to  the 
authority  of  an  undisputed  Church  gave  way  to  free 
inquiry  nourished  on  so  many  fresh  conceptions,  and 
disappeared  at  the  admirable  spectacle  of  this  real 
world  which  man  now  began  to  comprehend  and  to 
conquer.  The  rhetorical  academies  which,  at  first, 
were  composed  of  a  clerical  body  passed  into  the 
hands  of  the  laityf  they  had  preached  the  payment  of 
tithes  and  submission  to  the  Church  ;  they  now  ridi- 
culed the  clergy  and  combated  ecclesiastical  abuses. 


112  TUE  rilTLOSOPJIY  OF  ART 

In  1533  nine  citizens  of  Amsterdam  were  condemned 
to  a  pilgrimage  to  Home  for  having  represented  one 
of  these  satirical  pieces.  In  1539,  at  Ghent,  the 
question  having  been  proposed  of :  Who  are  the 
greatest  fools  in  the  world  ?  eleven  out  of  nineteen 
academies  reply  :  The  monks.  "  A  few  poor  monks 
and  nuns,"  says  a  contemporary,  "  always  appear  in 
the  comedies ;  it  seems  as  if  people  could  not  enjoy 
tliemselves  without  making  sport  of  God  and  tlie 
Church."  Pliilip  II.  had  decreed  the  punishment  of 
death  against  authors  and  actors  whose  pieces  were 
not  authorized  or  were  impious.  But  they  were  per- 
formed, nevertheless,  even  in  tlie  vilUiges.  "  Tlie 
word  of  God,"  says  the  same  author,  "first  found  its 
way  into  these  countries  through  plays,  and  for  this 
reason  tliey  are  forbidden  much  more  rigidly  than 
tlie  writings  of  Martin  Luther."  *  It  is  evident  that 
the  mind  had  become  emancipated  from  ancient 
tutelage,  and  that  people  and  burgliers,  artizans  and 

*  In  1539  Louvain  proposes  this  qncption  :  "What  is  the  fp'oatest  con- 
eolation  to  a  dyin;::  man  ?"  The  responses  all  have  a  Lutheran  cast.  The 
Academy  of  St.  Wynockbcri^e,  bearing?  ofl"  the  second  prize,  answers, 
accordinc:  to  the  doctrine  of  pure  grace  :  ."  The  faith  that  Christ  and  his 
Spirit  have  been  jjiven  to  us." 


J.Y  THE  NETHERLANDS.  113 

merchants  began  to  tliink  for  themselves  on  matters 
of  salvation  and  morality. 

The  extraordinary  wealth  and  prosperity  of  the 
country  lead  to  picturesque  and  sensuous  customs ; 
here,  as  in  England  at  the  same  epoch,  a  renais- 
sance pomp  overlays  a  silent  Protestant  fermenta- 
tion. When  Charles  V.,  in  1520,  made  his  entry 
into  the  city  of  Antwerp,  Albert  Durer  saw  four 
hundred  triumphal  arches,  two  stories  liigh  and  forty 
feet  long,  decorated  with  paintings  on  which  alle- 
gorical representations  were  given.  The  performers 
consisted  of  young  girls  belonging  to  the  best  bour- 
geois class,  clothed  simply  in  thin  gauze,  "  almost 
naked,"  says  the  honest  German  artist, — "I  have 
rarely  seen  more  beautiful.  I  gazed  at  them  very 
attentively,  and  even  passionately,  inasmuch  as  I  am 
a  painter."  The  festivals  of  the  belle-lettre  acade- 
mies become  magnificent;  cities  and  communities 
rival  each  other  in  luxurious  allegorical  creations.  At 
the  invitation  of  the  violinists  of  Antwerp  fourteen 
academies,  in  1562,  send  their  "triumphs,"  and  the 
academy  called  the  Gubiande  de  3farie^  at  Brussels, 
obtains  the  prize.     "  For,"  says  Van  Meteren,  "  thero 


114:  THE  rniLOSOPEY  OF  ART 

were  full  three  hundred  and  forty  men  on  horseback, 
all  dressed  in  velvet  and  in  dark  purple  silk,  with 
long  Polish  cassocks  embroidered  with  silver  lace, 
and  wearing  red  hats  fashioned  like  antique  hel- 
mets ;  their  pourpoints,  plumes  and  bootees  were 
white.  They  wore  belts  of  silver  tocque,  very  in- 
geniously woven  with  yellow,  red,  blue  and  white. 
They  had  seven  chariots  made  after  the  antique 
pattern,  with  divers  personages  borne  thereon. 
They  had,  beside,  seventy-eight  ordinary  chariots 
with  torches  ;  the  said  chariots  were  covered  with 
red  cloth  bordered  with  white.  The  charioteers  all 
wore  red  mantles,  and  on  these  chariots  were  divers 
personages  representing  a  number  of  beautiful  an- 
tique figures,  all  of  which  goes  to  show  how  people 
will  assemble  in  friendship  to  share  in  amity."  La 
Plone  de  3faUnes  provides  a  parade  almost  equal  to 
this  consisting  of  three  hundred  and  twenty  men  on 
horseback,  attired  in  a  flesh-colored  material  em- 
broidered with  gold,  seven  antique  chariots  embla- 
zoned and  flaming  with  all  sorts  of  lights.  Add  to 
this  the  entry  of  twelve  other  processions,  and  then 
enumerate  the  plays,  pantomines,  fireworks  and  ban- 


IJ^  THE  NETHERLANDS.  II5 

qiu'ts  n-liicli  follow  after,  "  There  were  several  simi- 
lar games  given  during  the  peace  in  other  cities,  , .  . . 
I  have  deemed  it  proper  to  narrate  all  this,"  says  Yan 
JMeteren,  "for  the  purpose  of  showing  the  happy 
union  and  prosperity  of  those  countries  in  those 
days."  After  the  departure  of  Philip  II.,  "  instead  of 
one  court  there  seemed  to  be  a  hundred  and  fifty," 
The  nobles  vied  with  each  other  in  magnificence, 
maintaining  free  tables  and  spending  without  stint. 
On  one  occasion  the  Prince  of  Orange,  wishing  to 
diminish  his  train,  discharged  in  a  body  twenty- 
eight  head  cooks.  Lordly  mansions  swarmed  with 
pages  and  gentlemen  and  superb  liveries;  the  full 
tide  of  the  renaissance  overflowed  in  folly  and 
extravagance,  as  under  Elizabeth  in  England,  in 
pompous  array,  cavalcades,  games  and  good  cheer. 
The  Count  of  Brederode  drank  so  much  at  one  of 
St.  Martin's  feasts  that  he  came  near  dying ;  the 
rhinegrave's  brother  did  actually  die  at  the  table 
through  too  great  fondness  of  Malvoisie  wine.  Xever 
did  life  seem  more  bright  or  beautiful.  Like  Flor- 
ence under  the  Medicis  in  the  preceding  century,  it 
ceased  to  be  tragic  ;  man  had  expanded  ;  murderous 


116  THE  PHILOSOrHY  OF  ART 

revolts  and  sanguinary  wars  between  city  and  city 
and  corporation  and  corporation  quietly  subsided; 
only  one  sedition  takes  place  in  Ghent  in  1536  wliich 
is  easily  quelled  without  much  bloodshed,  the  last 
and  a  feeble  convulsion,  not  to  be  compared  with 
the  formidable  insurrections  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
Margaret  of  Austria,  Mary  of  Hungary,  and  Mar- 
garet of  Parma,  the  three  rulers,  are  popular ; 
Charles  Y.  is  a  national  prince,  speaking  Flemish, 
boasting  of  his  nativity  in  Ghent,  and  protecting,  by 
treaties,  the  manufactures  and  trade  of  the  country. 
He  fosters  and  nourishes  it ;  Flanders,  in  return, 
supplies  liim  with  the  half  of  his  entire  revenue ;  ^ 
in  his  herd  of  states  she  is  the  fat  milch  cow  which 
is  milked  constantly  without  being  dried  up.  Thus, 
while  the  mind  is  expanding,  the  temperature  around 
it  becomes  modified  and  establishes  the  conditions 
of  a  new  growth  ;  we  see  the  dawn  of  it  in  the  festi- 
vals of  the  belle-lettre  academies,  which  are  classic 
representations  precisely  like  those  of  the  Florence 
carnival  and  quite  different  from  the  quaint  conceits 
accumulated  at  the  banquets  of  the  Dukes  of  Bur 

*  Two  million  of  crowns  of  gold  out  of  five  million. 


ly-  THE  NETIIERLA^'J)S.  1 1  7 

gundy.  "The  'Violet,'  'Olive'  aiul  'Tliougla' 
academies  of  Antwerp,"  says  Giiiccardini,  "give 
public  performances  of  comedies,  tragedies  and  other 
histories  in  imitation  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans.' 
Society,  ideas  and  tastes  have  undergone  a  transfor- 
mation, and  there  is  room  for  a  new  art. 

Already  in  the  preceding  epoch  we  see  premon- 
itory symptoms  of  the  coming  change.  From 
Hubert  Van  Eyck  to  Quintin  Matsys  the  grandeur 
and  gravity  of  religious  conceptions  have  dimin- 
ished. Nobody  now  dreams  of  portraying  the 
whole  of  Christian  faith  and  doctrine  in  a  single 
picture;  scenes  are  selected  from  the  Gospel  and 
from  history — annunciations,  shepherd  adorations, 
last  judgments,  martyrdoms  and  moral  legends. 
Painting,  which  is  epic  in  the  hands  of  Hubert  Van 
Eyck,  becomes  idyllic  in  those  of  Ilemling  and 
almost  w^orldly  in  those  of  Quintin  Matsys.  It 
gets  to  be  pathetic,  interesting  and  pleasing.  The 
charming  saints,  the  beautiful  Herodias  and  the 
lithe  Salome  of  Quintin  Matsys  are  richly  attired 
noble  dames  and  already  laic;  the  artist  loves  the 
world  as  it  is  and  for  itself,  and  does  not  subordinate 


118  THE  rillLO SOPHY  OF  ART 

it  to  the  representation  of  the  supernatural  world 
lie  does  not  employ  it  as  a  means  but  as  an  end. 
Scenes  of  profane  life  multiply;  he  paints  towns- 
peoj^le  in  their  shops;  money-changers,  amorous 
couples,  and  the  attenuated  features  and  stealthy 
smiles  of  a  miser.  Lucas  of  Leyden,  his  contempo- 
rary, is  an  ancestor  of  the  painters  whom  we  call 
the  lesser  Flemings;  his  "Presentation  of  Christ" 
and  "The  Magdalen's  Dance"  have  nothing  relig- 
ious about  them  but  their  titles;  the  evangelical 
subject  is  lost  in  the  accessories ;  that  which  the 
picture  truly  presents  is  a  rural  Flemish  festival,  or 
a  gathering  of  Flemings  on  an  open  field.  Jerome 
Bosch,  of  the  same  period,  paints  grotesque,  infernal 
scenes.  Art,  it  is  clear,  falls  from  heaven  to  earth, 
and  is  no  longer  to  treat  divine  but  human  incidents. 
Artists,  in  other  respects,  lack  no  process  and  no 
preparation  ;  they  understand  perspective,  they 
know  the  use  of  oil,  and  are  masters  of  modelling 
and  relief;  they  have  studied  actual  types;  they 
know  how  to  paint  dresses,  accessories,  architecture 
and  landscaj^e  with  wonderful  accuracy  and  finish ; 
their  manipulative  skill  is  admirable.      One  defect 


m  THE  NETHERLANDS.  119 

only  still  chains  them  to  hieratic  art,  which  is  the 
immobility  of  their  faces  and  the  rigid  folds  of  theii 
stuffs.  They  have  but  to  observe  the  rapid  play  of 
pliysiognomies  and  tlie  easy  movement  of  loose  dra- 
pery, and  the  renaissance  is  complete ;  the  breeze 
of  tlie  age  is  behind  them  and  already  fills  their 
sails.  On  looking  at  their  portraits,  their  interiors, 
and  even  their  sacred  j)ersonages,  as  in  the  "En- 
tombment" of  Quintin  Matsys,  one  is  tempted  to 
address  them  thus :  "  You  are  alive — one  effort 
more !  Come,  bestir  yourselves !  Shake  off  the 
middle  age  entirely !  Depict  the  modern  man  for 
us  as  you  find  him  within  you  and  outside  of  you. 
Paint  him  vigorous,  healthy  and  content  with  exis- 
tence. Forget  the  meagre,  ascetic  and  pensive 
spirit,  dreaming  in  the  chapels  of  Hemling.  If 'you 
choose  a  religious  scene  for  the  motive  of  your  pic- 
ture, compose  it,  like  the  Italians,  of  active  and 
healthy  figures,  only  let  these  figures  proceed  from 
your  national  and  personal  taste.  You  have  a  soul 
of  your  own,  which  is  Flemish  and  not  Italian  ;  let 
the  flower  bloom ;  judging  by  the  bud  it  will  be  a 
beautiful  one."     And,  indeed,  when  we  regard  the 


1  L^O  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

sculptures  of  the  time,  such  as  the  chimney  of  the 
Palais  de  Justice  and  the  tomb  of  Charles  the  Bold 
at  Bruges,  the  church  and  monuments  of  Brou, 
Ave  see  the  promise  of  an  original  and  complete  art, 
less  sculptural  and  less  refined  than  the  Italian,  but 
more  varied,  more  expressive  and  closer  to  nature, 
less  subject  to  rule  but  nearer  to  the  real,  more 
capable  of  manifesting  spirit  and  personality,  the 
impulses,  the  unpremeditated,  the  diversities,  the 
lights  and  darks  of  education,  temperament  and 
age  of  the  individual ;  in  short,  a  Germanic  art 
which  indicates  remote  successors  to  the  Van  Eycks 
and  remote  predecessors  of  Rubens. 

They  never  appeared,  or  at  all  events,  they  imper- 
fectly fulfilled  their  task.  No  nation,  it  must  be 
noted,  lives  alone  in  the  world;  alongside  of  the 
Flemish  renaissance  there  existed  the  Italian  renais- 
sance, and  the  large  tree  stifled  the  small  plant.  It 
flourished  and  grew  for  a  century ;  the  literature, 
the  ideas  and  the  masterpieces  of  precocious  Italy 
imposed  themselves  on  sluggish  Europe,  and  the 
Flemish  cities,  through  their  commerce,  and  the  Aus- 
trian dynasty,  through  its  possessions  and  its  Italian 


Ilf  THE  NETHE11LAND8.  12j 

affairs,  introduced  into  the  North  the  tastes  and  mod 
els  of  the  new  civilization.  Towards  1520  the  Flem 
ish  painters  began  to  borrow  from  tlie  artists  of 
Florence  and  Rome.  John  of  Mabuse  is  the  first  one 
who,  in  1513,  on  returning  from  Italy,  introduced 
the  Italian  into  the  old  style,  and  the  rest  followed. 
It  is  so  natural  in  advancing  into  an  unexplored 
country  to  take  the  path  already  marked  out !  This 
path,  however,  is  not  made  for  those  who  follow  it ; 
the  long  line  of  Flemish  carts  is  to  be  delayed  and 
stuck  fast  iu  the  disproportionate  ruts  which  another 
set  of  wheels  have  worn.  There  are  two  traits  char- 
acteristic of  Italian  art,  both  of  whicli  run  counter  to 
the  Flemish  imagination.  On  the  one  hand  Italian 
art  centres  on  the  natural  body,  healthy,  active  and 
vigorous,  endowed  with  every  athletic  aptitude,  that 
is  to  say,  naked  or  semi-draped,  frankly  pagan,  en- 
joying freely  and  nobly  in  full  sunshine  every  limb, 
instinct  and  animal  faculty,  the  same  as  an  ancient 
Greek  in  his  city  or  palestrum,  or,  as  at  this  very 
epoch,  a  Cellini  on  the  Italian  streets  and  highways. 
Now  a  Fleming  does  not  easily  enter  into  this  con- 
ception.    He  belongs  to  a  cold  and  humid  climate ;  a 


122  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OB'  ART 

mail  tliere  in  a  state  of  nudity  shivers.  Tlie  human 
form  here  does  not  display  the  fine  proportions  nov 
the  easy  attitudes  required  by  chissic  art ;  it  is  often 
dumpy  or  too  gross;  the  white,  soft,  yielding  flesli, 
easily  flushed,  requires  to  be  clothed.  When  the 
painter  returns  from  Rome  and  strives  to  pursue  Ital- 
ian art,  his  surroundings  oppose  his  education ;  his 
sentiment  being  no  longer  renewed  through  his  con- 
tact with  living  nature,  he-is  reduced  to  his  souvenirs. 
Moreover,  he  is  of  Germanic  race ;  in  other  terms  he 
is  organically  a  morally  good-natured  maji,  and  even 
modest ;  he  has  difficulty  in  appreciating  the  pagan 
idea  of  nudity,  and  still  greater  difficulty  in  compre- 
hending the  fatal  and  magnificent  idea*  which  gov- 
erns civilization  and  stimulates  the  arts  beyond  the 
Alps,  namely,  that  of  the  complete  and  sovereign 
individual,  emancipated  from  every  law,  subordina- 
ting the  rest,  men  and  things,  to  the  development  of 
his  own  nature  and  the  growth  of  his  own  faculties. 
Our  painter  is  related,  although  distantly,  to  Martin 

*  Burckbardfs  "  IMe  Cultur  der  Renaissance  in  Italien,"  an  admirable 
work,  the  most  complete  and  most  philosophic  yet  written  on  theltaliaE 
Keuaissance. 


JZV^  THE  NETHERLANDS.  123 

Schoen  and  Albert  Diircr;  he  is  a  bourgeois,  abnost 
docile  and  staid,  a  lover  of  the  comfortable  and  the 
decent,  and  adapted  to  family  and  domestic  life.  His 
biographer,  Karl  Van  Mander,  at  the  beginning  of 
his  book,  furnishes  him.  with  moral  precepts.  Read 
this  patriarchal  treatise,  and  imagine  the  distance 
between  a  Rosso,  a  Giulio  Romano,  a  Titian  and  a 
Giorgione,  and  their  pupils  of  Leyden  or  Antwerp. 
"  All  vices,"  says  the  good  Fleming,  "  bring  their 
own  punishment.  Distrust  the  maxim  that  the  best 
painter  is  he  who  is  the  most  dissipated.  Unworthy 
of  the  name  of  artist  is  he  who  leads  an  evil  life. 
Painters  should  never  dispute  or  enter  into  strife  with 
each  other.  To  squander  one's  property  is  not  a  mer- 
itorious art.  Avoid  paying  court  to  women  in  your 
youthful  days.  Shun  the  society  of  frivolous  women, 
who  corrupt  so  many  painters.  Reflect  before  you 
depart  for  Rome,  for  the  opportunities  to  spend 
money  there  are  great,  and  none  are  there  for  earn- 
ing it.  Ever  be  thankful  to  God  for  His  bounties." 
Special  recommendations  follow  concerning  Italian 
inns,  bed  linen  and  fleas.  It  is  evident  that  pupils 
of  this  class,  even  with  great  labor,  will  produce  but 


124  THE  PHILOISOPHY  OF  ART 

little  more  than  academic  figures ;  man,  according 
to  their  conceptions,  is  a  draped  body;  when,  fol- 
lowing the  example  of  the  Italian  masters,  they  at- 
tempt the  nude,  they  render  it  without  freedom, 
without  spirit,  without  vivacity  of  invention ;  theii 
pictures,  in  fact,  are  simply  cold  and  meagre  imita- 
tion;  their  motive  is  pedantic;  they  execute  ser- 
vilely and  badly  that  which,  in  Italy,  is  done  nat- 
urally and  well.  On  the  other  hand,  Italian  art,  like 
Greek  art,  and,  in  general,  all  classic  art,  simplifies 
in  order  to  embellish ;  it  eliminates,  effaces,  and  re- 
duces detail ;  by  this  means  it  gives  greater  value  to 
grander  features.  Michael  Angelo  and  the  admira- 
ble Florentine  school  subordinate  or  suppress  acces- 
sories, landscape,  fabrics  and  costume ;  with  them 
the  essential  consists  of  the  noble  and  the  grandiose 
type,  the  anatomical  and  muscular  structure,  the 
nude  or  lightly  draped  form  taken  by  itself,  ab- 
stractly, through  the  retrenchment  of  particulars  con- 
stituting the  individual  and  denoting  his  profession, 
education  and  condition ;  you  have  man  in  general 
represented,  and  not  a  special  man.  Tlioir  person- 
ages are  in  a  superior  world,  because  they  are  of  a 


IN  THE  NETIIhmLANDS.  125 

world  which  is  not ;  the  peculiar  feature  of  the  scene 
they  depict  is  the  nullity  of  time  and  space.  Noth- 
ing is  more  opposed  to  Germanic  and  Flemish  genius, 
which  sees  things  as  they  are  in  their  entirety  and 
complexity  ;  which,  in  man,  takes  in,  besides  man  in 
general,  the  contemporary,  the  citizen,  the  peasant, 
the  laborer,  this  citizen,  that  laborer,  that  peasant ; 
which  attaches  as  much  importance  to  the  accesso- 
ries of  a  man  as  to  the  man  himself;  which  loves 
not  merely  human  nature  but  all  nature,  animate  and 
inanimate — cattle,  horses,  plants,  landscape,  sky,  and 
even  the  atmosphere — its  broader  sympathies  fore- 
stalling any  neglect  of  objects,  and  its  more  minute 
observation  requiring  the  fullest  expression.  You  can 
comprehend  how,  in  subjecting  itself  to  a  discipline 
so  contrary,  it  loses  tlie  qualities  it  had  without  ac- 
quiring those  it  had  not;  how,  in  order  that  it  may 
arrogate  the  ideal,  it  reduces  color,  loses  the  senti- 
ment of  light  and  atmosphere,  obliterates  the  true 
details  of  costume  and  of  interiors,  deprives  figures 
of  original  diversities  peculiar  to  portrait  and  person, 
and  is  led  to  moderate  the  suddenness  of  motion 
constituting  the  impulsiveness  of  nature's  activity, 


126  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  APT 

and  thereby  impairing  ideal  symmetry.  It  finds 
difficulty,  however,  in  making  all  these  sacrifices ; 
its  instinct  only  partially  yields  to  its  education. 
Flemish  reminiscences  may  be  traced  underneath 
Italian  velleity ;  both  in  turn  predominate  in  the 
same  picture  ;  each  prevents  the  other  from  having 
their  full  efiect;  their  painting,  consequently,  uncer- 
tain, imperfect  and  diverted  by  two  tendencies,  fur- 
nishing us  with  historical  documents  and  not  beauti- 
ful works  of  art. 

Such  is  the  spectacle  presented  in  Flanders  dur- 
ing the  last  three  quarters  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
Like  a  small  river  receiving  a  large  stream,  the  min- 
gled waters  of  which  are  disturbed  until  the  foreign 
afiluent  imposes  its  more  powerful  tint  on  the  entire 
current,  so  do  we  find  the  national  style,  invaded  by 
the  Italian,  dappled  irregularly  and  in  places,  gradu- 
ally disappearing,  only  rarely  rising  to  the  surface, 
and  at  last  sinking  into  obscure  depths,  whilst  the 
other  disj^lays  itself  in  the  light  and  attracts  univer- 
sal attention.  It  is  interesting  to  trace  in  the  public 
galleries  this  conflict  of  the  two  currents  and  the 
peculiar  efi*ects  of  their  commingling.     The  first  Itab 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  127 

ian  influx  takes  place  with  Jolin  de  Mabuse,  Ber- 
nard Yan  Orley,  Lambert  Lombard,  John  Mostaert, 
John  Schorel,  and  Launcelot  Blondel.  They  import 
in  their  pictures  classic  architecture,  veined  marble 
pilasters,  medallions,  shell  niches,  sometimes  trium- 
phal arches  and  cariatides,  sometimes  also  noble  and 
vigorous  female  figures  in  antique  drapery,  a  sound 
nude  form,  well  proportioned  and  vitalized,  of  the 
fine  pagan  stock,  and  healthy;  their  imitation  re- 
duces itself  to  this,  while  in  other  respects  they  follow 
national  traditions.  They  still  paint  small  pictures, 
suitable  for  genre  subjects;  they  almost  always  pre- 
serve the  strong  and  rich  coloring  of  the  preceding 
age,  the  mountains  and  blue  distances  of  John  Van 
Eyck,  the  clear  skies  vaguely  tinged  with  emerald 
on  the  horizon,  the  magnificent  stuffs  covered  with 
gold  and  jewels,  the  powerful  relief,  the  minute  pre- 
cision of  detail,  and  the  solid  honest  heads  of  the 
bourgeoisie.  But  as  they  are  no  longer  restrained  by 
hieratic  gravity  they  fall,  in  attempting  to  emanci- 
pate themselves,  into  simple  awkwardness  and  ridic- 
ulous inconsistencies.  The  children  of  Job,  crushed 
by  their  falling  palace,  sprawl  about  grimacing  and 


128  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

writhing  as  if  possessed  ;  on  the  other  panel  of  tho 
triptych  is  the  devil  in  the  air  mounting  upward  like 
a  bat  towards  the  petty  Christ  of  a  missal.  Long 
feet  and  lean  ascetic  hands  form  the  odd  appurte- 
nances of  a  shapely  body.  A  "Last  Supper"  by 
Lambert  Lombard  mingles  together  Flemish  clumsi- 
ness and  vulgarity  with  the  composition  of  Da  Vinci. 
A  "  Last  Judgment "  by  Bernard  Van  Orley  intro- 
duces demons  by  Martin  Schcen  amidst  the  academic 
figures  of  Raphael.  In  tlie  next  generation  the  ris- 
ing flood  begins  to  engulph  all ;  Michael  Van  Cox- 
cyen,  Heemskerk,  Franz  Floris,  Martin  de  Vos,  the 
Franckens,  Van  Mander,  Spranger,  Pourbus  the  elder, 
and  later,  Goltzius,  besides  many  others,  resemble 
people  ambitious  of  speaking  Italian  but  who  do  so 
laboriously,  with  an  accent  and  some  barbarisms. 
The  canvas  is  enlarged  and  approaches  the  usual 
dimensions  of  an  historical  subject;  the  manner  of 
painting  is  less  simple ;  Karl  Van  Mander  reproaches 
his  contemporaries  with  "overloading  their  brushes," 
Avhich  was  not  formerly  done,  and  with  carrying  im- 
jiasto  to  excess.  Coloring  dies  out ;  it  becomes  more 
and  more  white,  chalky  and  pallid.     Painters  enter 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  129 

passionately  into  tlie  study  of  anatomy,  foresliorten- 
ings  and  muscular  development ;  their  drawing  be- 
•omes  dry  and  hard,  reminding  one  at  once  of  the 
goldsmiths  contemporary  with  Pollaiolo  and  the  ex- 
aggerating disciples  of  Michael  Angelo ;  they  lay 
great  or  violent  stress  on  their  science,  they  insist  on 
proving  their  ability  to  manij^ulate  the  skeleton  and 
produce  action ;  you  will  find  Adams  and  Eves, 
Saint  Sebastians,  Massacres  of  the  Innocents,  and 
Iloratii  resembling  grotesque  forms  of  living  and 
bare  muscles ;  their  personages  look  as  if  casting 
their  skins.  When  they  show  more  moderation,  and 
the  painter,  like  Franz  Floris  in  his  "  Fall  of  the  An- 
gels," discreetly  copies  good  classic  models,  his  nudi- 
ties are  scarcely  any  better;  realistic  sentiment  and 
tlie  quaint  Germanic  imagination  peer  out  among 
ideal  forms;  demons  with  the  heads  of  cats,  fishes 
and  swine,  and  with  horns,  claws  and  humps,  and 
blowing  fire  from  their  jaws,  introduce  bestial  com- 
edy and  a  fantastic  sabbat  into  the  midst  of  the  noble 
Olympus ;  we  have  one  of  Teniers'  bufiboneries  in- 
serted in  a  poem  by  Raphael.  Others,  like  Martin 
Vos,  strain  themselves  to  produce  the  great  sacred 
6* 


130  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

picture,  figures  imitated  from  the  antique,  cuirasses, 
draperies  and  tunics,  studied  correctness  in  composi- 
tion, gestures  indicative  of  noble  action  and  stage 
heads  and  head  gear,  Avhile  they  are  substantially 
genre  painters  and  lovers  of  reality  and  accessories. 
They  constantly  fall  back  to  their  Flemish  types  and 
their  domestic  details;  their  pictures  seem  to  be 
enlarged  colored  engravings ;  they  would  be  much 
better  were  they  of  small  size.  We  feel  in  the  artist 
a  perverted  talent,  a  natural  disposition  thwarted, 
an  instinct  working  against  the  grain,  a  prose-writer 
born  for  narrating  social  incidents  of  whom  the  pub- 
lic commands  epics  in  sounding  Alexandrines.*  Still 
another  wave,  and  the  remains  of  national  genius  seem 
wholly  submerged.  A  painter  of  noble  family,  well 
brought  up,  instructed  by  an  erudite,  a  man  of  the 
world  and  a  courtier,  a  favorite  of  the  great  Italian 
and  Spanish  leaders  who  manage  matters  in  the 
Netherlands,  Otto  Yenius,  after  passing  seven  years 
in  Italy,  brings  from  that  country  noble  and  pure 

*  This  period  of  Flemish  art  is  analogous  to  that  of  English  li(  erature 
after  the  Restoration.  In  both  cases  a  Germanic  art  attempts  to  be  clas- 
tic ;  in  both  cases  the  contrast  between  education  and  nature  produces 
hybrid  worlcs  and  multiplied  failures. 


ly  THE  NETHERLANDS.  \Z\ 

antique  types,  beautiful  Venetian  color,  melting  and 
subtly  graduated  tones,  shadows  jDenneated  witli 
light,  and  the  vague  purples  of  flesh  and  of  ruddy 
foliage.  Excepting  his  native  stimulus  he  is  Italian, 
and  no  longer  belongs  to  his  race;  scarcely  more 
than  a  fragment  of  costume  or  the  simple  attitude  of 
a  stooping  old  man  connects  him  with  his  countrj^ 
Nothing  remains  to  the  painter  but  to  abandon  it 
entirely.  Denis  Calvaert  establishes  himself  at  Bo- 
logna, enters  into  competition  with  the  Caraccis,  and 
is  the  master  of  Guido.  Flemish  art  accordingly 
seems,  through  its  own  course,  to  suppress  itself  for 
the  advantage  of  another. 

And  yet  it  still  subsists  underneath  the  other.  In 
vain  does  the  genius  of  a  peojile  yield  to  foreign  in- 
fluences. It  always  recovers.  These  are  temporary, 
while  that  is  eternal ;  it  belongs  to  the  flesh  and  the 
blood,  the  atmosphere  and  the  soil,  the  structure  and 
degree  of  activity  of  brain  and  senses  ;  all  are  ani- 
mating forces  incessantly  renewed  and  everyN\here 
present,  and  which  the  transient  applause  of  a  supe- 
rior civilization  neither  undermines  nor  destroys. 
This  is  apparent  in  the  preservation  of  two  styles 


132  THE  PIIILOSjPUY  OF  ART 

wljich  continue  pure  amidst  the  growing  transtbrma 
tion  of  the  others.  Mabuse,  Morstaert,  Van  Orley, 
the  two  Pourbus,  John  Van  Cleve,  Antonis  Moor,  the 
two  Mierevelts  and  Paul  Moreelze  produce  excellent 
portraits ;  often,  in  the  triptyclis,  the  faces  of  the 
donataires,  arranged  in  rows  on  the  shutters,  form  a 
contrast  in  their  homely  sincerity,  calm  gravity  and 
profound  simplicity  of  expression  with  the  frigidity 
and  artificial  composition  of  the  principal  subject ; 
the  spectator  feels  himself  quite  re-animated  ;  instead 
of  manikins  he  finds  men.  On  the  other  hand  there 
arises  the  painting  of  genre  subjects,  landscapes  and 
interiors.  After  Quintin  Matsys,  and  Lucas  of  Ley- 
den,  we  see  it  developing  with  John  Matsys,  Van 
Hemessen,  the  Breughels,  Vinckenbooms,  the  three 
Valkenburgs,  Peter  Neefs  and  Paul  Bril,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  multitude  of  engravers  and  illustrators 
Avlio  reproduce,  on  scattered  sheets  or  in  books,  the 
moralities,  social  incidents,  professions,  conditions 
and  events  of  the  day.  They  are,  undoubtedly,  to 
remain  for  a  long  time  fantastic  and  humorous. 
This  art  mixes  up  nature  promiscuously,  according 
to  its  own  disordered  fancies;  it  is  unconscious  of  the 


IX  THE  XETIIEllLANDS.  133 

true  forms  and  the  true  tint  of  trees  and  mountains: 
it  makes  its  figures  howling,  and  introduces  amidst 
the  costumes  of  the  period  grotesque  monsters  sim 
ilar  to  those  promenading  through  the  kerniesses. 
But  all  these  intermediary  objects  are  natural,  and 
insensibly  lead  on  to  its  final  state,  which  is  the 
knowledge  and  love  of  actual  life,  as  the  eye  con- 
templates it.  Here,  as  in  the  painting  of  portraits, 
the  chain  is  complete  ;  the  metal  of  all  its  links  is 
national ;  through  Breughel,  Paul  Bril  and  Peter 
Xeefs,  through  Antonis  Moor,  the  Pourbus  and  the 
Mierevelts,  it  joins  on  to  the  Flemish  and  Dutch 
masters  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  rigidity  of 
ancient  figures  is  relaxed ;  a  mystic  landscape  be- 
comes real ;  the  transition  from  the  divine  to  the 
iiuman  age  is  accomplished.  This  spontaneous  and 
regidar  development  shows  that  national  instincts 
are  maintained  under  the  empire  of  foreign  fashions; 
let  a  crisis  intervene  to  arouse  them,  and  they  re- 
cover their  ascendancy,  while  art  is  transformed  ac- 
cording to  the  public  taste.  This  crisis  is  the  great 
revolution  commencing  in  1572,  the  long  and  terrible 
\Yar  of  Independence,  as  grand  in  its  events  and  as 


134  THE  PHILOSOPIIT  OF  ART 

fecund  of  results  as  our  French  Kevolution.  Ilercv 
as  with  us,  the  renewal  of  the  moral  world  is  the 
renewal  of  the  ideal  world  ;  the  Flemisli  and  Dutch 
art  of  the  seventeenth  century,  like  the  French  art 
and  literature  of  the  nineteenth  century,  is  the  reac- 
tion of  a  vast  tragedy  performed  for  thirty  years  at 
the  cost  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  lives.  Here, 
however,  the  scaffolds  and  battles,  having  divided  the 
nation,  form  two  peoples;  one  Catholic  and  legiti- 
mist in  Belgium,  and  the  other  Protestant  and  rejDub- 
lican  in  Holland.  While  both  were  combined  there 
was  but  one  spirit ;  divided  and  opposed  there  were 
two.  Antwerp  and  Amsterdam  held  different  con- 
ceptions  of  life,  and,  accordingly,  display  different 
schools  of  painting ;  the  same  political  crisis  which 
divided  their  country  divided  their  art. 


/-V  THE  NETUERLAXDS.  I35 


III. 

We  must  look  closely  into  the  formation  of  Bel- 
gium* in  order  to  comprehend  the  rise  of  the  school 
which  bears  tlie  name  of  Rubens.  Previous  to  the 
War  of  Independence  the  Southern  provinces  seemed 
to  tend  to  the  Reformation  as  well  as  the  provinces 
of  the  North.  In  1566  bands  of  iconocLasts  had 
devastated  the  cathedrals  of  Antwerp,  Ghent  and 
Tournay,  and  broken  everywhere,  in  the  cliurches 
and  the  abbeys,  all  images  and  ornaments  deemed 
idolatrous.  In  the  environs  of  Ghent  thousands  of 
armed  Calvinists  flocked  to  the  preachings  of  Her- 
mann Strieker.  Crowds  gathered  around  the  stake, 
sang  psalms,  sometimes  stoned  the  executioners  and 
set  the  condemned  free.  Death  penalties  had  to  be 
enacted  in  order  to  suppress  the  satires  of  the  belle- 
lettre  academies,  and  when  the  Duke  of  Alba  began 

*  All  are  aware  that  this  name  dates  from  the  French  Revohition.  I 
employ  it  here  as  tlie  most  convenient  term.  The  historic  desii,niatioii 
of  Belgium  is  "The  Spanish  Low  Countries,"  and  of  Holland  "The 
United  Provinces." 


136  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

liis  massacres  tlie  whole  country  rushed  to  arms. 
The  resistance,  however,  was  not  the  same  in  the 
Soutli  as  in  the  North;  in  the  South  the  Germanic 
race,  the  independent  and  Protestant  race,  was  not 
pure ;  the  Walloons,  a  mixed  population  speaking 
French,  constituted  one  half  of  the  inhabitants. 
The  soil,  moreover,  being  richer,  and  living  easier, 
there  was  less  energy  and  greater  sensuality ;  man 
was  less  resolved  to  suffer  and  more  inclined  to 
enjoy.  Finally,  almost  all  the  Walloons,  besides  tlie 
families  of  the  great,  being  attached  to  court  senti- 
ment through  a  court  life,  were  Catholic.  Hence  it 
is  that  the  Southern  provinces  did  not  contend  with 
the  indomitable  stubbornness  of  the  Northern  prov- 
inces. There  is  nothing  in  them  like  the  sieges  of 
Maestricht,  Harlem,  Alkmaar  and  Leyden,  where 
women  enlisted,  fought,  and  were  slaughtered  in 
the  breach.  After  the  taking  of  Antwerp  by  the 
Duke  of  Parma  the  ten  provinces  returned  to  their 
allegiance,  and  began  apart  a  new  existence.  The 
most  spirited  citizens  and  the  most  fervent  Calvin- 
ists  had  perished  in  battle  and  on  the  scaffold,  or  had 
fled  to  the  North  in  the  seven  free  provinces.     The 


ly  TUB  NETHERLANDS.  137 

bcUe-lc'ttre  academies  exiled  themselves  there  in  a 
body.  On  the  termination  of  the  Duke  of  Alva's 
administration  it  was  estimated  that  sixty  thousand 
families  had  emigrated ;  after  the  capture  of  Ghent 
eleven  thousand  more  departed,  and  after  the  capit- 
ulation of  Antwerp  four  thousand,  weavers  betook 
themselves  to  London.  Antwerp  lost  the  half  of 
its  inhabitants,  and  Ghent  and  Bruges  two-thirds  ; 
whole  streets  were  empty  ;  in  the  principal  street  of 
Ghent  a  couple  of  horses  cropped  the  grass.  A 
mighty  surgical  operation  had  relieved  the  nation 
of  what  the  Spaniards  called  its  bad  blood ;  at  all 
events  that  which  remained  was  the  most  quiescent. 
There  is  a  great  substratum  of  docility  in  the 
Germanic  races ;  think  of  the  German  regiments 
exported  to  America  and  sold  there  to  die  by  their 
petty  absolute  princes :  the  sovereign  once  accej^ted, 
tliey  are  faithful  to  him;  with  guaranteed  rights 
he  seems  legitimate;  they  are  inclined  to  respect 
the  established  order  of  things.  The  continued  con- 
straint, moreover,  of  irremediable  necessity  produces 
its  effect ;  man  accommodates  himself  to  things 
Avhen  he  is  satisfied  that   he  cannot  change  them 


138  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

certain  portions  of  his  character  which  cannot  be 
developed  hiiiguish,  and  others  expand  the  more. 
There  are  moments  in  the  history  of  a  nation  when 
it  bears  some  resemblance  to  Christ  taken  to  the 
top  of  a  high  mountain  by  Satan,  and  there  bid 
to  choose  between  a  heroic  and  a  common  life ; 
here  the  tempter  is  Philip  IL,  with  his  armies  and 
executioners ;  the  people  of  the  North  and  the 
South,  both  subject  to  the  same  trial,  decide  dif- 
ferently according  to  the  petty  diversities  of  their 
composition  and  character.  The  choice  made  these 
diversities  grow,  and  are  exaggerated  by  the  effects 
of  the  situation  they  themselves  have  produced. 
Both  people  being  two  almost  indeterminate  varie- 
ties of  one  species  become  two  distinct  species.  It 
is  with  moral  types  as  with  organic  types ;  they 
issue  at  the  beginning  from  a  common  origin,  but  as 
they  complete  their  development  they  grow  wider 
apart  and  are  thus  formed  through  their  divergen- 
cies. The  Southern  provinces  henceforth  become 
Bel2:ium.  The  dominant  trait  is  the  cravinoj  for 
peace  and  comfort,  the  disposition  to  take  life  on  the 
jovial  and  pleasant  side,  in  brief,  the  sentiment  of 


IX  THE  yETHEllLAyDS.  139 

reiiiers.  In  fact,  even  in  a  dilapidated  cabin  or  in 
a  bare  tavern  on  a  wooden  bench  a  man  may  laugli, 
>ing,  smoke  a  good  pipe  and  swallow  deep  draughts 
of  beer;  it  is  not  disagreeable  to  attend  mass  as 
a  fine  ceremony,  uor  to  recount  one's  sins  to  an 
accommodating  Jesuit.  After  the  capture  of  An- 
twerp, Pliilip  II.  is  delighted  to  hear  that  commu- 
nions have  become  more  and  more  frequent.  Con- 
vents are  founded  twenty  at  a  time.  "  It  is  a  mat- 
ter worthy  of  remark,"  says  a  contemporary,  "  that 
since  the  happy  advent  of  the  archdukes  more  new 
establishments  have  arisen  than  in  two  hundred 
years  and  before  that " — Franciscans,  reformed  Car- 
melites, friars  of  St  Francis  de  I*aule,  Carmelites, 
annunciada,  and  especially  the  Jesuits  ;  the  latter  in 
fact  bring  with  them  a  new  Christianity,  the  most 
appropriate  to  the  state  of  the  country,  and  Avhich 
«:eems  manufactured  purposely  to  contrast  with  that 
of  the  Protestants.  Be  docile  in  mind  and  in  heart, 
and  all  the  rest  is  tolerance  and  indulgence ;  in  this 
connection  see  the  portraits  of  the  day,  and  among 
others,  the  gay  fellow  who  was  confessor  to  Rubens. 
Casuistry  is  shaped  to  and  serves  for  difficult  cases ; 


140  THE  rUILOSOPIIY  OF  ART 

under  its  empire  there  is  scope  enough  for  all  cur- 
rent peccadilloes.  Worship,  moreover,  is  exempt 
from  prudery,  and  winds  up  by  being  amusing.  To 
this  epoch  belongs  the  worldly  and  sensualistic 
internal  decoration  of  the  grave  and  venerable 
cathedral,  the  multiplied  and  contorted  ornaments — 
flames,  lyres,  trinkets  and  scrolls,  the  veneerings  of 
veined  marbles,  altars  resembling  theatre  fayadcs, 
and  the  quaint  diverting  pulpits  overlaid  with  a  men- 
agerie of  carved  birds  and  brutes.  As  respects  the 
new  churches,  the  outside  suits  the  inside.  Tliat 
of  the  Jesuits,  built  in  Antwerp  at  the  beginning  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  is  instructive,  it  being  a 
saloon  filled  with  etaghres.  Its  thirty-six  ceilings 
were  executed  by  Rubens,  and  it  is  curious  to  see 
here  as  elsewhere  an  ascetic  and  mystic  faith  accept 
as  edifying  subjects  the  most  blooming  and  the 
most  exposed  nudities,  buxom  Magdalens,  plump  St. 
Sebastians  and  Madonnas  whom  the  negro  magi  are 
devouring  with  all  the  lust  of  their  eyes,  a  display 
of  flesh  and  fabrics  unequalled  by  the  Florentine 
carnival  in  luxurious  temptation  and  in  triumphant 
sensuality. 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  14] 

Meanwhile  the  altered  political  situation  contrib- 
utes to  the  transformation  of  the  intellectual  world. 
The  old  despotism  becomes  relaxed  ;  to  the  rigors 
of  the  Duke  of  Alva  succeeds  the  liberal  policy  of 
the  Duke  of  Parma.  After  an  amputation,  a  man 
who  has  bled  profusely  must  be  restored  by  soothing 
and  strengthening  treatment ;  hence  it  is  that,  after 
the  pacification  of  Ghent,  the  Spaniards  let  their  ter- 
rible edicts  against  heresy  lie  dormant.  Executions 
are  at  an  end.  The  latest  martyr  is  a  poor  sewing 
woman,  buried  alive  in  1597.  In  the  following  cen- 
tury Jordaens,  with  his  wife  and  her  family,  become 
Protestants  without  being  annoyed,  and  even  with- 
out losing  any  of  his  commissions.  The  archdukes 
permit  towns  and  corporations  to  govern  themselves 
according  to  ancient  usages,  to  collect  imposts  and 
attend  to  their  own  business ;  when  they  desire 
to  have  Breughel  de  Velours  relieved  of  military 
duty  or  of  exactions,  they  make  their  appeal  to  the 
commune.  The  government  becomes  regular,  semi- 
liberal,  and  almost  national ;  Spanish  extortions,  raz- 
zias, and  brutalities  disappear.  At  length,  in  order 
to  keep  possession  of  the  country,  Philip  II.  is  com- 


142  TEE  PEILOSOPEY  OF  ART 

pelled  to  let  it  remain  Flemisli,  and  exist  as  a  separate 
state.  In  1599  he  detaches  it  from  Spain,  and  cedes: 
it  in  full  possession  to  Albert  and  Isabella.  "  The 
Spaniards  never  did  a  better  thing,"  writes  the 
French  ambassador;  "  it  would  be  impossible  to  keep 
the  conntry  without  giving  it  this  new  system,  as  it 
was  ripe  for  revolution."  The  States-General  meet 
in  1000,  and  decide  for  reforms.  ^Ye  see  in  Guic- 
cardini,  and  other  travellers,  that  the  old  constitu- 
tion arises  almost  intact  out  of  the  rubbish  under 
which  it  had  been  buried  by  military  violence.  "At 
Bruges,"  31.  de  Monconys  writes  in  1653,  "each  trade 
fias  a  house  in  common,  where  those  of  the  profes- 
sion meet  to  transact  the  business  of  the  community, 
or  for  recreation ;  and  all  the  trades  are  distributed 
into  four  divisions,  under  the  control  of  four  burgo- 
masters, who  have  charge  of  the  keys  of  the  city, 
the  Governor  exercising  no  jurisdiction  or  power 
over  any  but  tlie  military  force."  The  archdukes 
are  wise  and  solicitous  of  the  public  welfare.  In 
1609  they  make  peace  with  Holland;  in  1611  their 
perpetual  edict  completes  tlie  restoration  of  the  coun- 
try.    They  either  are  or  render  themselves  power- 


m  THE  NETHERLANDS.  143 

fill ;  Isabella,  with  lier  own  hand,  strikes  down,  on 
ibe  Place  de  Sablon,  the  bird  which  sanctifies  tlio 
cross-bowman's  pledge ;  Albert  attends  at  Louvain 
the  lectures  of  Justus  Lepsius.  They  love,  cherish, 
and  attach  themselves  to  famous  artists — Otto  Ye- 
niiis,  Rubens,  Teniers,  and  Breughel  de  Velours. 
The  belle-lettre  institutions  flourish  again,  and  the 
universities  are  favored  ;  in  the  Catholic  w^orld,  un- 
der the  Jesuits  and  often  by  their  side,  is  a  kind  of 
intellectual  renaissance ;  a  number  of  theologians, 
controversialists,  casuists,  erudites,  geographers,  phy- 
sicians, and  even  historians,  arise — Mercator,  Orte- 
lius,  Van  Helmont,  Jansenius,  Lepsius,  all  of  whom 
are  Flemings  of  this  epoch.  The  "  Description  of 
Flanders,"  by  Sander,  a  vast  work  completed  after 
so  many  trials,  is  a  monument  of  national  zeal  and 
patriotic  pride.  If,  in  turn,  we  wnsh  to  form  an  idea 
of  the  state  of  the  country,  take  one  of  the  tranquil 
and  fallen  cities  to-day  like  Bruges.  Sir  Dudley 
Carleton,  passing  through  Antwerp  in  1616,  finds  it 
a  handsome  place,  although  nearly  empty ;  he  may 
liave  seen  no  more  than  "  forty  persons  in  the  entire 
Street,"  not  a  carriage,  not  a  horseman,  not   a  cus 


U4  THE  PIIJLOSOPIIY  OF  ART 

tomer  in  the  shops ;  but  the  houses  are  well  main- 
tained, everything  being  clean  and  cared  for :  the 
peasant  has  rebuilt  his  burnt  cabin  and  is  at  work 
in  the  field  ;  the  liousewife  is  attending  to  her  duties ; 
security  has  returned,  and  is  about  to  be  followed 
by  plenty  ;  there  are  shooting  matches,  processions, 
fairs  and  magnificent  entries  of  princes  ;  people  are 
getting  back  to  old  comforts  beyond  which  they  do 
not  aspire  ;  religion  is  left  to  the  Church,  and  gov- 
ernment to  the  princes :  here,  as  at  Venice,  the 
course  of  events  has  brought  man  down  to  the  quest 
of  enjoyment — the  effort  to  obtain  it  being  the  more 
strenuous  in  proportion  to  the  strong  contrast  with 
their  previous  misery. 

And,  in  truth,  what  a  contrast !  It  is  necessary 
to  have  read  the  details  of  the  war  in  order  to  ap- 
preciate it.  Fifty  thousand  martys  had  perished 
Under  Charles  V.,  eighteen  thousand  persons  had 
been  executed  by  the  Duke  of  Alva,  and  the  re- 
volted country  had  maintained  the  war  for  thirteen 
years.  The  Spaniards  had  reconquered  the  large 
cities  only  by  famine  after  protracted  sieges.  In 
the  beginning  Antwerp  was  sacked  for  three  days ; 


J.V  TUB  NETUERLANBS.  I45 

Be  veil  thousand  of  her  citizens  were  slain,  and  live 
hundred  houses  were  burnt.  The  soldier  lived  on 
the  country,  and  we  see  him  in  the  engravings  of 
the  day  plundering  and  robbing  dwellings,  torturing 
the  husband,  violating  the  wife,  and  bearing  away 
chests  and  furniture  in  carts.  When  his  pay  was 
"withheld  too  long  he  took  up  his  quarters  in  a  town, 
and  this  led  to  a  republic  of  brigands;  under  an 
eletto  of  their  own  choice  they  rp.vaged  the  environs 
at  their  convenience.  Karl  Van  Mander,  the  his- 
torian of  the  painters,  on  returning  one  day  to  his 
village,  found  his  house  pillaged  along  with  the 
rest ;  the  soldiers  had  even  taken  the  bed  and  bed- 
clothes of  his  old  sick  father.  Karl  was  driven  out 
naked,  and  they  were  already  fixing  a  rope  to  his 
neck  to  hang  him  when  he  was  saved  by  a  cavalier 
whom  he  had  known  in  Italy.  Another  time,  as  he 
was  on  the  road  with  his  wife  and  an  infant  child, 
they  took  his  money,  baggage  and  clothes,  his  wife's 
and  those  of  the  infant ;  the  mother  could  only 
secure  a  small  petticoat,  the  infant  a  tattered  net, 
and  Karl  an  old  worn-out  piece  of  cloth  in  which 
he  wrapped  himself  up,  and  in  which  guise  he 
7 


146  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

readied  Bruges.  Under  this  regime  a  country 
ceases  to  exist ;  soldiers  themselves  finally  die  of 
starvation ;  the  Duke  of  Parma  writes  to  Philip  IL 
that  if  he  fails  to  send  relief  the  army  is  lost,  "  for 
nobody  can  live  without  eating."  On  emerging 
from  such  calamities,  peace  seems  a  paradise  ;  it  is 
not  merely  the  good  at  which  man  rejoices,  but  the 
•  hetter^  and  here  the  better  is  stupendous.  A  man 
can  now  sleep  in  his  own  bed,  store  up  provisions, 
enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  labor,  travel  about  and  as- 
semble and  converse  with  his  fellows  without  fear ; 
he  has  a  home,  a  country  and  a  future.  All  the 
ordinary  occurrences  of  life  get  to  be  interesting 
and  attractive;  he  revives,  and  for  the  first  time 
seems  to  live.  It  is  circumstances  like  these  out  of 
which  always  springs  a  spontaneous  literature  and 
an  original  art.  The  great  crisis  through  which  the 
nation  has  passed  serves  to  remove  the  monotonous 
varnish  with  which  tradition  and  custom  have  over- 
spread things.  We  find  out  what  man  is ;  we  seize 
on  the  fundamental  points  of  his  renewed  and  trans- 
formed nature;  we  see  its  deptli,  its  secret  instincts, 
the   master  forces  which  denote  his   race   and  are 


ZJ^  TUB  NETHERLANDS.  147 

about  to  control  his  liistorv;  lialf  a  cciitni-}'  later 
and  we  see  them  no  raoi'e,  because  during  a  halt' 
century  they  have  been  constantly  visible.  In  the 
meantime,  however,  the  new  order  of  things  be- 
comes complete;  the  mind  confronts  it  like  Adam 
on  his  first  awakening;  it  is  only  later  that  con- 
ceptions get  to  be  over-refined  aiid  weakened ;  they 
are  now  broad  and  simple.  Man  is  qualified  for  this 
through  his  birth  in  a  crumbling  society  and  an 
education  in  the  midst  of  veritable  tragedies;  like 
Victor  Hugo  and  George  Sand,  the  child  Rubens,  in 
exile,  alongside  of  his  imprisoned  father,  hears,  in 
his  home  and  all  around  him,  the  roar  of  tempest 
and  of  wreck.  After  an  active  generation  which 
has  sufiercd  and  created,  comes  the  poetic  gener- 
ation which  writes,  paints  or  models.  It  expresses 
and  amplifies  the  energies  and  desires  of  a  society 
founded  by  its  fathers.  Hence  it  is  that  Flemish 
art  proceeds  to  glorify  in  heroic  types  the  sensual 
instincts,  the  grand  and  gross  joyousness,  the  rude 
energy  of  surrounding  mortals,  and  to  find  in  the 
alehouse  of  Teniers  the  Olympus  of  Rubens. 

Among  these  painters  there  is  one  who  seems  to 


148  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

ettace  the  rest ;  indeed  no  name  in  the  history  of  art 
is  greater,  and  there  are  only  three  or  four  as  great. 
But  Kuhens  is  not  an  isolated  genius,  the  number 
as  Avell  as  the  resemblance  of  surrounding  talents 
showing  that  the  efflorescence  of  which  he  is  the 
most  beautiful  emanation  is  the  product  of  his 
time  and  people.  Before  him  there  was  Adam  Van 
Noort,  his  master,*  and  the  master  of  Jordaens ; 
around  him  are  his  contemporaries,  educated  in  otlier 
studios,  and  whose  invention  is  as  spontaneous  as  his 
own — Jordaens,  Crayer,  Gerard  Zeghers,  Rombouts, 
Abraham  Janssens,  and  Van  Roose ;  after  him  come 
his  pupils — Van  Thulden,  Diepenbecke,  Van  den 
Hoeck,  Corneille  Schut,  Boyermans,  Van  Dyck,  the 
greatest  of  all,  and  Van  Oost  of  Bruges ;  alongside 
of  him  are  the  great  animal,  flower  and  still-life 
painters — Snyders,  John  Fyt,  the  Jesuit  Seghers,  and 
an  entire  school  of  famous  engravers — Soutman,  Vor- 
sterman,  Bolswert,  Pontius  and  Vischer;  the  same 
sap  fructifies  all  these  branches,  the  lesser  as  well  as 
the   greaterj  while  we  must  add,  again,  the  perva- 

*  See  the  admirable  "  Miraculous  Draft,"  by  Van  Noort,  in  St.  James» 
at  Antwerp. 


ZzY  THE  NETHERLANDS.  140 

ding  sympathies  and  the  national  admiration.  It  is 
plain  that  an  art  like  tliis  is  not  the  effect  of  one  acci- 
dental cause  but  of  a  general  development,  and  of 
this  we  have  full  assurance  when,  considering  the 
work  itself,  Ave  remark  the  concordances  whicli 
assimilate  it  with  its  milieu. 

On  the  one  side  it  resumes  or  follows  tlie  tradi- 
tions of  Italy,  and  is  seen  at  a  glance  to  be  pagan 
and  Catholic.  It  is  supported  by  churches  and  con- 
vents ;  it  represents  Biblical  and  evangelical  scenes  : 
jhe  subject  is  edifying ;  and  the  engraver  deliber- 
ately places  at  the  bottom  of  his  engravings  pious 
maxims  and  moral  problems.  And  yet,  in  fact, 
there  is  nothing  Christian  about  it  but  its  name  ;  all 
mystic  or  ascetic  sentiment  is  banished  ;  its  Madon- 
nas, marten's  and  confessors,  its  Christs  and  apostles 
are  superb  florid  bodies  restricted  to  the  life  of 
the  flesh;  its  paradise  is  an  Olympus  of  well-fed 
Flemish  deities  revelling  in  muscular  activity ;  they 
are  large,  vigorous,  plump  and  content,  and  make  a 
jovial  and  magnificent  display  as  in  a  national  festi 
val  or  at  a  princely  entry.  The  Church,  it  is  true, 
Daptizes  this  last  flower  of  the  old  mythology  with 


150  THE  PHILOSOPIIY  OF  ART 

becoming  forms,  but  it  is  only  baptism,  and  this 
is  frequently  wanting.  ApoUos,  Jupiters,  Castors, 
Pollux  and  Venus,  all  the  ancient  divinities,  revive 
under  their  veritable  names  in  the  palaces  of  the 
kings  and  the  great  which  they  decorate.  This  is 
owing  to  religion,  here  as  in  Italy,  consisting  of 
rites.  Rubens  goes  to  mass  every  morning,  and  pre- 
sents a  picture  in  order  to  obtain  indulgences  ;  after 
which  he  falls  back  upon  his  own  poetic  feeling  fof 
natural  life  and,  in  the  same  style,  paints  a  lusty 
Magdalen  and  a  plump  Siren  ;  under  the  Catholic 
varnish  the  heart  and  the  intellect,  all  social  ways 
and  observances  are  pagan.  On  the  other  side,  tliis 
art  is  truly  Flemish  ;  everything  issues  from  and 
centres  on  a  mother  idea  which  is  new  and  national ; 
it  is  harmonious,  spontaneous  and  original ;  in  this 
respect  it  contrasts  with  the  foregoing  which  is  only 
a  discordant  imitation'.  From  Greece  to  Florence, 
from  Florence  to  Venice,  from  Venice  to  AntAverp, 
every  step  of  the  passage  can  be  traced.  The  con- 
ception of  man  and  of  life  goes  on  decreasing  in 
nobleness  and  increasing  in  breadth.  Kubens  is  to 
Titian  what  Titian  was  to  Raphael,  and  Raphael  to 


m  THE  NETHERLANDS.  151 

Phidias.  Never  did  artistic  sympathy  clasp  nature 
in  such  an  open  and  universal  embrace.  Ancient 
boundaries,  already  often  extended,  seem  removed 
purposely  to  expose  an  infinite  career.  There  is  no 
respect  for  historic  proprieties ;  he  groups  together 
allegoric  with  real  figures,  and  cardinals  with  a 
naked  Mercury.  There  is  no  deference  to  the  moral 
order;  he  fills  the  ideal  heaven  of  mythology  and 
of  the  gospel  with  coarse  or  mischievous  char- 
acters ;  a  Magdalen  resembling  a  nurse,  and  a  Ceres 
whispering  some  pleasant  gossip  in  her  neighbor's 
ear.  There  is  no  dread  of  exciting  physical  sensi- 
bility ;  he  pushes  the  horrible  to  extremes,  athwart 
all  the  tortures  for  the  punishment  of  the  flesh  and 
all  the  contortions  of  howling  agony.  There  is  no 
fear  of  offending  moral  delicacy ;  his  Minerva  is  a 
shrew  who  «an  fight,  his  Judith  a  butcher's  wife 
familiar  with  blood,  and  his  Paris  a  jocose  expert 
and  a  dainty  amateur.  To  translate  into  words  the 
ideas  vociferously  proclaimed  by  his  Suzannas,  his 
Magdalens,  his  St.  Sebastians,  his  Graces  and  his 
Sirens,  in  all  his  keriaesses,  divine  and  human,  ideal 
or  real.  Christian  or  pagan,  would  require  the  terms 


152  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

of  Rabelais.  Through  hira  all  the  animal  instincts 
of  human  nature  appear  on  the  stage;  tliose  which 
had  been  excluded  as  gross  he  reproduces  as  true, 
and  in  him  as  in  nature  they  encounter  the  others. 
Nothing  is  wanting  but  the  pure  and  the  noble  ;  the 
whole  of  human  nature  is  in  his  grasp,  save  the 
loftiest  heights.  Hence  it  is  that  his  creativeness 
is  the  vastest  we  have  seen,  comprehending  as  it 
does  all  types,  Italian  cardinals,  Roman  emperors, 
contemporary  citizens,  peasants  and  cowherds,  along 
with  the  innumerable  diversities  stamped  on  human- 
ity by  the  play  of  natural  forces  and  which  more 
than  fifteen  hundred  pictures  did  not  suffice  to 
exhaust. 

For  the  same  reason,  in  the  representation  of  the 
body,  he  comprehended  more  profoundly  than  any 
one  the  essential  characteristic  of  organic  life;  he 
surpasses  in  this  the  Venetians,  as  they  surpass  the 
Florentines ;  he  feels  still  better  than  they  that  flesh 
is  a  changeable  substance  in  a  constant  state  of 
renewal;  and  such,  more  than  any  other,  is  the 
Flemish  body,  lympathic,  sanguine  and  voracious, 
more  fluid,  more  rapidly  tending  to  accretion  and 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  153 

waste  than  those  whose  dry  fibre  and  radical  temper 
ance  preserve  permanent  tissues.  Hence  it  is  that 
nobody  has  depicted  its  contrasts  in  stronger  relief, 
nor  as  visibly  shown  the  decay  and  bloom  of  life — at 
one  time  the  dull  flabby  corpse,  a  genuine  clinical 
mass,  empty  of  blood  and  substance,  livid,  blue  and 
mottled  through  suifering,  a  clot  of  blood  on  the 
mouth,  tlie  eye  glassy  and  the  feet  and  hands  clay- 
ish,  swollen  and  deformed  because  death  seized  them 
lirst ;  at  another  the  freshness  of  living  carnations, 
:he  handsome,  blooming  and  smiling  athlete,  the 
mellow  suppleness  of  a  yielding  torso  in  the  form  of 
a  well-fed  adolescent,  the  soft  rosy  cheeks  and  placid 
candor  of  a  girl  whose  blood  was  never  quickened 
or  eyes  bedimmed  by  thought,  flocks  of  dimpled 
cherubs  and  merry  cupids,  the  delicacy,  the  folds, 
the  exquisite  melting  rosiness  of  infantile  skin,  seem- 
ingly the  petal  of  a  flower  moistened  with  dew  and 
impregnated  with  morning  light.  In  like  manner  in 
the  representation  of  soul  and  action  he  appreciated 
more  keenly  than  any  one  the  essential  feature  of 
animal  and  moral  life,  that  is  to  say  the  instantaneous 
movement  which  it  is  the  aim  of  the  plastic  arts  to 


154:  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

seize  on  tlie  wing.  In  this  again  he  surpasses  the  Vene- 
tians as  they  surpassed  the  Florentines.  Nobody 
has  endowed  figures  with  such  spirit,  with  a  gesture 
so  impulsive,  wdth  an  impetuosity  so  abandoned  and 
furious,  such  an  universal  commotion  and  tempest 
of  swollen  and  writhing^  muscles  in  one  sinsjle  effort. 
His  personages  speak ;  their  repose  itself  is  suspen- 
ded on  the  verge  of  action ;  we  feel  what  they  have 
just  accomplished  and  what  they  are  about  to  do. 
The  present  with  them  is  impregnated  with  the  past 
and  big  with  the  future;  not  only  the  whole  face  but 
the  entire  attitude  conspires  to  manifest  the  flowing 
stream  of  their  thought,  feeling  and  complete  being ; 
we  hear  the  inward  utterance  of  their  emotion  ;  we 
might  repeat  the  words  to  which  they  give  expres- 
sion. The  most  fleeting  and  most  subtle  shades  of 
sentiment  belong  to  Rubens ;  in  this  respect  he  is  a 
treasure  for  novelist  and  psychologist ;  he  took  note 
of  the  passing  refinements  of  moral  expression  as  well 
as  of  the  soft  volume  of  sanguine  flesh ;  no  one  has 
gone  beyond  him  in  knowledge  of  the  living  organ- 
ism and  of  the  animal  man.  Endowed  with  this  sen- 
timent and  skill  he  was  capable,  in  conformity  with 


W  THE  NETIIERLAXDS.  155 

the  aspirations  and  needs  of  his  restored  nation,  of 
amplifying  the  forces  he  found  around  and  within 
liimself,  all  that  underlie,  preserve  and  manifest  the 
overflow  and  triumph  of  existence  ;  on  the  one  han<l 
gigantic  joints,  herculean  shapes  and  shoulders,  red 
and  colossal  muscles,  bearded  and  truculent  heads, 
over-nourished  bodies  teeming  Avith  succulence,  the 
luxurious  display  of  white  and  rosy  flesh  ;  on  the 
other,  the  rude  instincts  Avhicli  impel  human  nature 
to  seek  food,  drink,  strife  and  pleasure,  the  savage 
fury  of  the  combatant,  the  enormity  of  the  big-bel- 
lied Silenus,  the  sensual  joviality  of  the  Faun,  the 
abandonment  of  that  lovely  creature  without  con- 
science and  "  fat  with  sin,"  the  boldness,  the  energy, 
the  broad  joyousness,  the  native  goodness,  the  or- 
ganic serenity  of  the  national  type.  He  heiglitens 
these  efl*ects  again  through  their  composition  and 
the  accessories  with  which  he  surrounds  them — mag- 
nificence of  lustrous  silks,  embroidered  simarres  and 
golden  brocades,  groups  of  naked  figures,  modern 
costumes  and  antique  draperies,  an  inexhaustible 
accumulation  of  arms,  standards,  colonnades,  Vene- 
tian stairways,  temples,  canopies,  ships,  animals,  and 


150  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

ever  novel  and  imposing  scenery,  as  if  outside  of 
ordinary  nature  he  possessed  the  key  of  a  thousand 
times  richer  nature,  whereon  his  magician's  hand 
could  forever  draw  without  the  freedom  of  liis  imag- 
ination ending  in  confusion,  but  on  the  contrary 
with  a  jet  so  vigorous  and  a  prodigality  so  national 
that  his  most  complicated  productions  seem  like  the 
irresistible  outflow  of  a  surfeited  brain.  Like  an 
Indian  deity  at 'leisure  he  relieves  his  fecundity  by 
ireating  worlds,  and  from  the  matchless  folds  and 
jues  of  his  tossed  simarres  to  the  snowy  whites  of 
/lis  flesh,  or  the  pale  silkiness  of  his  blonde  tresses, 
there  is  no  tone  in  any  of  his  canvasses  which  does 
not  appear  there  purposely  to  aiford  him  delight. 

Tliere  is  only  one  Rubens  in  Flanders,  as  there 
is  only  one  Shakespeare  in  England.  Great  as  the 
others  are,  they  are  deficient  in  some  one  element  of 
his  genius.  Grayer  has  not  his  audacity  nor  his 
excess ;  he  paints  beauty  calm,*  sympathetic  and 
content  along  with  requisite  eflects  of  bright  and 
mellow  color.     Jordaens  has  not  his  regal  grandeur 

*See  at  Ghent  his  "St.  Rosalie,"  at  Bruojes  his  "  Adoration  of  the 
Shepherds,"  and  at  Rennes  his  "Lazarus." 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  157 

and  liis  lieroic  poetic  feeling  ;  lie  paints  with  vinous 
color  stunted  colossi,  crowded  groups  and  turbulent 
plebeians.  Yan  Dyck  has  not,  like  hitn,  the  love  of 
power  and  of  life  for  life  itself;  more  refined,  more 
chivalric,  born  with  a  sensitive  and  even  melan- 
choly nature,  elegiac  in  his  sacred  subjects,  aristo- 
cratic in  his  portraits,  he  depicts  with  less  glowing 
and  more  sympathetic  color  noble,  tender  and 
charming  figures  whose  generous  and  delicate  souls 
are  filled  with  sweet  and  sad  emotions  unknown  to 
his  master.*  His  works  are  the  first  indication  of 
the  coming  change.  After  1660  he  is  already  prom- 
inent. The  generation  whose  energy  and  aspira- 
tions had  inspired  the  grand  picturesque  revery, 
faded  away  man  by  man  ;  Grayer  and  Jordaens 
alone,  by  merely  living,  kept  art  up  for  twenty  years. 
The  nation,  reviving  for  a  moment,  falls  backward  ; 
its  renaissance  never  perfects  itself.  The  archducal 
sovereigns,  through  wdiom  it  had  become  an  indepen- 
dent state,  ended  in  1633 ;  it  reverts  back  to  a  Span- 
ish province  under  a  governor  sent  from  Madrid.  The 
treaty  of  1648  closes  the  Scheldt  to  it,  and  completes 

*  See,  especially,  his  bacred  works  at  Maliues  and  Antwerp. 


158  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

the  ruin  of  lier  commerce.  Louis  XIV.  dismembers 
her,  and  on  three  occasions  deprives  her  of  portions 
of  her  territory.  Four  successive  wars  trample  over 
her  for  thirty  years;  friends  and  enemies,  Spaniards, 
French,  English  and  Hollanders  live  upon  her;  the 
treaties  of  1715  convert  the  Dutch  into  her  purvey- 
ors and  tax-gatherers.  At  this  moment,  become  Aus- 
trian, she  refuses  the  subsidy ;  but  the  elders  of  the 
states  are  imprisoned,  and  the  chief  one,  Anneessens, 
dies  on  the  scaffold  ;  this  is  the  last  and  a  feeble 
echo  of  the  mighty  voice  of  Van  Artevelde.  Hence- 
forth the  country  subsides  into  a  simple  province  in 
which  people  keep  soul  and  body  together  and  only 
care  to  live.  At  the  same  time,  and  through  a  reac- 
tion, the  national  imagination  declines.  The  school 
of  Rubens  degenerates;  with  Beyermans,  Yan  Herp, 
John  Erasmus  Quellin,  the  second  Van  Cost,  Deys- 
ter  and  John  Van  Orley  we  see  originality  and 
energy  disappearing  ;  coloring  grows  weak  or  be- 
comes affected;  attenuated  types  incline  to  pretti- 
iiess;  expression  is  either  sentimental  or  mawkish; 
the  personages  occupying  the  great  canvas,  instead  of 
filling  it  are  dispersed,  the  intervals  being  supplied 


Z.Y  THE  NETHERLANDS.  159 

with  arcliitecture  ;  the  vein  is  exhausted  ;  painting 
is  mere  routine  or  a  mannered  imitation  of  the 
Italian  school.  Many  betake  themselves  to  foreign 
countries.  Philippe  de  Champagne  is  director  of  the 
Academy  of  the  Fine  Arts  at  Paris  and  becomes 
French  in  mind  and  country  ;  still  more,  a  spiritualist 
and  Jansenist,  a  conscientious  and  skilful  painter  of 
grave  and  thoughtful  spirit.  Gerard  de  Lairesse 
becomes  a  disciple  of  the  Italians — a  classic,  aca- 
demic and  erudite  painter  of  costume  and  historic 
and  mythologic  resemblances.  The  logical  reason 
assumes  empire  in  the  arts,  having  already  obtained 
it  in  social  matters.  Two  pictures  in  the  Musee  of 
Ohent  equally  display  the  change  in  painting  and 
the  change  in  society.  Both  represent  princely 
entrees,  one  in  1666  and  the  other  in  1717.  The 
first,  of  a  beautiful  ruddy  tone,  shows  the  last  of  the 
men  of  the  grand  epoch,  their  cavalier  air,  their 
powerful  frame,  their  capacity  for  physical  endeavor, 
their  rich  decorative  costumes,  their  horses  with 
with  flowing  manes — here  nobles  related  to  Yan 
Dyck's  seigniors,  and  there  pikemen  in  buff  and 
cuirass   kindred  to  the   soldiers   of   Wallestein — in 


160  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  AllT 

short,  the  last  remains  of  the  lieroic  and  picturesque 
age.  The  second,  cold  and  pale  in  tone,  shows 
highly  refined,  softened,  Frenchified  beings — gentle- 
men clever  at  salutation,  women  of  fashion  con- 
scious of  their  appearance,  in  brief,  the  imported 
drawing-room  system  and  foreign  modes  of  de- 
meanor. During  the  fifty  years  separating  the 
former  from  the  latter  both  the  national  art  and 
the  national  spirit  vanished. 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  161 


IT. 

Whilst  the  Southern  provinces,  henceforth  subject 
and  Catholic,  followed  the  Italian  road  in  art,  and 
represented  on  their  canvasses  the  mythological  epos 
of  the  grand  and  heroic  nude  figure,  the  provinces 
of  the  Xorth,  becoming  free  and  Protestant,  devel- 
oped their  life  and  art  in  another  direction.  The 
climate  is  more  rainy  and  colder,  and  for  this  reason 
the  presence  of  the  nude  is  a  rarer  and  less  sym- 
pathetic thing.  The  Germanic  race  is  chaster,  and 
through  this  quality  the  mind  is  less  inclined  to 
appreciate  classic  art,  as  it  was  conceived  of  by 
the  Italian  renaissance.  Life  is  more  difficult,  more 
laborious,  and  more  economic;  man,  therefore,  ac- 
customed to  effort,  to  forethought  and  to  a  method- 
ical self-government,  has  more  trouble  in  compre- 
hendinoj  the  fascinatinor  dream  of  a  sensuous  and 
full-blown  existence.  We  can  imagine  the  Dutch 
citizen  in  his  home  after  the  day's  toil  at  his  business. 
His   dwelling  consists  of  small  apartments,   some- 


102  THE  PHILOSOPET  OF  ART 

what  resembling  the  state-rooms  of  a  ship ;  it  would 
be  a  troublesome  matter  to  suspend  on  the  walls  tlie 
large  pictures  decorating  the  saloons  of  an  Italian 
palace  ;  its  owner's  chief  requirements  are  cleanliness 
and  comfort ;  with  these  he  is  content  and  does  not 
insist  on  decoration.  According  to  the  Venetian 
ambassadors,  "  they  are  so  moderate  that,  even  with 

the  richest,  one  sees  no  unusual  pomp  or  luxury 

They  make  no  use  of  retainers  or  silken  habits,  very 
little  silver-ware,  and  no  tapestry  in  their  houses  ; 
the  household  numbers  a  very  few  and  is  very 
limited.  Outside  and  inside,  in  dress  and  in  other 
matters,  all  maintain  the  true  moderation  of  small 
fortunes,  nothing  superfluous  being  perceptible."  * 
When  the  Earl  of  Leicester  came  to  take  command 
in  Holland  in  the  name  of  Elizabeth,  and  Spinola 
arrived  to  negotiate  peace  for  the  King  of  Spain, 
their  regal  magnificence  formed  a  striking  contrast 
and  even  provoked  scandal.  The  head  of  the  re- 
public, William  the  Taciturn,  the  hero  of  the  age, 
wore  an  old  mantle  which  a  student  would  have  pro- 

*  Motley's  "United  Netherlands,"  Vol.  IV.  p.  551.    Report  of  Con- 
tarini,  1609. 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  1G3 

nonnced  tlii-cadbare,  with  a  pouvpoint  like  it,  unbut 
toned,  and  a  woollen  waistcoat  resembling  that  of  a 
bargeman.  In  the  next  century  the  adversary  of 
Louis  XIV.,  the  grand  pensioner  John  de  Witt  kept 
only  one  domestic;  everybody  could  approach  him; 
he  imitated  his  illustrious  predecessor,  who  lived 
cheek-by-jo'wl  with  "  brewers  and  bourgeois."  AYe 
find  yet  at  the  j^i'esent  day,  in  their  social  ways, 
naany  an  indication  of  ancient  sobriety.  It  is  clear 
that  with  such  characters  there  is  but  little  room  for 
the  decorative  and  voluptuous  instincts  which  else- 
where in  Europe  fashioned  aristocratic  show,  and 
rendered  comprehensible  the  pagan  poesy  of  beauti- 
ful bodies. 

The  opposite  instincts,  in  effect,  predominate. 
Relieved  of  the  drawback  of  the  Southern  provinces, 
Holland,  at  the  end  of  tlie  sixteenth  century,  sud- 
denly and  with  extraordinary  energy  turns  in  the 
direction  of  its  natural  proclivities.  Primitive  incli- 
nations and  faculties  appear  Avith  the  most  strik- 
ing results ;  they  are  not  a  new  birth,  but  simply 
a  revelation.  Good  observers  had  detected  them 
a  liundred    and   fifty   years   before.     "Friesland   is 


164  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

free,"  said  Pope  ^neas  Sylvius,*  "  lives  in  her  OAvn 
fashion,  will  not  endure  foreign  empire,  and  has  no 
desire  to  dominate  over  others.  The  Frieslander 
does  not  hesitate  to  face  death  in  behalf  of  liberty. 
This  spirited  people,  used  to  arms,  of  large  and 
robust  frames,  calm  and  intrepid  in  disposition, 
glories  in  her  freedom  notwithstanding  that  Philip, 
Duke  of  Burgundy,  proclaims  himself  lord  of  the 
country.  They  detest  military  and  feudal  arro- 
gance, and  tolerate  no  man  who  seeks  to  raise  his 
head  above  his  fellows.  Tlieir  magistrates  are 
elected  annually  by  themselves,  and  are  obliged  to 
administer  ]3ublic  matters  with  equity.  .  .  .  They 
severely  punish  licentiousness  among  women  .  .  . 
They  scarcely  admit  an  unmarried  priest  lest  he 
should  corrupt  the  wife  of  another,  regarding  con- 
tinence as  a  difficult  thing  and  beyond  the  natural 
powers."  Every  Germanic  conception  of  state,  mar- 
riage and  religion  are  here  visible  in  germ,  and 
forecast  the  final  flowering  of  the  republic  and  of 
Protestantism.  Subjected  to  trial  by  Pliilip  II. 
they  offer  to  sacrifice  beforehand  "  their  lives   and 

*  Cosinographia,  p.  421 


IJT  THE  NETHERLANDS.  I(j5 

their  property."  A  small  population  of  traders, 
lost  on  a  mud-heap  at  the  extremity  of  an  empire 
more  vast  and  more  feared  than  that  of  Xapoleon 
resisted,  subsisted  and  increased  under  the  weiglit 
of  the  colossus  who  tried  to  crush  her.  Their  sieges 
are  all  admirable;  citizens  and  women,  suj^ported 
by  a  few  hundreds  of  soldiers,  arrest  an  entire  army 
before  ruined  ramparts,  the  best  troops  in  Europe, 
the  greatest  generals  and  the  most  skilful  engin- 
eers ;  and  this  remnant  of  emaciated  people,  after 
feeding  on  rats,  boiled  leaves  and  leather  for 
months,  determine,  rather  than  surrender,  to  place 
the  infirm  in  the  centre  of  a  square  and  go  forth  to 
die  in  the  intrenchments  of  the  enemy.  The  details 
of  this  war  must  be  read  in  order  to  realize  the 
extent  to  which  man's  patience,  coolness  and  energy 
may  be  carried.*  On  the  sea  a  Dutch  vessel  is 
blown  up  rather  than  strike  its  flag,  while  their  voy- 
ages of  discovery,  colonization  and  conquest,  in 
Kova  Zembla,  India  and  Brazil,  by  the  way  of  the 
Straits    of  Magellan,    are    as   magnificent    as   their 

*  Among  others  the  capture  of  Bois-le-Duc  by  Heraugiere  and  sixty 
nine  volunteers. 


1G6  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

combats.  The  more  we  demand  of  human  nature 
the  more  she  gives;  lier  faculties  are  exalted  in 
their  exercise,  while  the  limits  to  her  power  of 
doing  and  suffering  are  no  longer  perceptible. 
Finally,  in  1609,  after  thirty  years  w^arfare,  the  cause 
is  won.  Spain  recognizes  their  independence,  and 
during  the  whole  of  the  seventeenth  century  they 
are  to  play  a  most  prominent  part  in  the  affairs  of 
Europe,  ^o  power  can  make  them  yield,  neither 
Spain  during  a  second  war  of  twenty-seven  years, 
nor  Cromwell,  nor  Charles  II.,  nor  England  com- 
bined with  France,  nor  the  fresh  and  formidable 
power  of  Louis  XIV. ;  after  three  wars  their  am- 
bassadors are  all  to  be  seen  m  humble  and  fruit- 
less entreaty  at  Gertruydenberg,  and  the  grand- 
pensioner  Hemsius,  is  to  become  one  of  the  three 
potentates  to  control  the  destinies  of  Europe. 

Internally  their  government  is  as  good  as  their 
external  position  is  exalted.  For  the  first  time  in 
the  world  conscience  is  free  and  the  rights  of  the  cit- 
izens are  respected.  Their  state  consists  of  a  com- 
munity of  provinces  voluntarily  united,  which,  each 
within  its  own  borders,  maintains  with  a  degree  of 


IJH  THE  NETHERLANDS.  167 

perfection  unknown  till  then  the  security  of  the  pub- 
lic and  the  liberty  of  the  individual.  "  They  all  love 
liberty,"  says  Parival  in  1660 ;  "no  one  among  them 
is  allowed  to  beat  or  abuse  another,  while  the  women 
servants  have  so  many  privileges  their  masters, 
even,  dare  not  strike  them."  Full  of  his  admiration^ 
he  repeatedly  insists  on  this  wonderful  respect  for 
human  personality.  "  There  is  not  to-day  a  prov- 
ince in  the  world  which  enjoys  so  much  liberty  as 
Holland,  with  so  just  a  harmony  that  the  little  can- 
not be  imposed  upon  by  the  great,  nor  the  poor  by 
the  rich  and  opulent  .  .  .  The  moment  a  seignior 
brings  into  this  country  any  serfs  or  slaves  they  are 
free ;  yes,  and  the  money  he  laid  out  in  their  pur- 
chase is  lost .  .  .  The  inhabitants  of  a  villaore  having: 
paid  what  they  owe  are  as  free  as  the  inhabitants  of 
a  city  .  .  .  And  above  all  each  is  king  in  his  own 
house,  it  being  a  very  serious  crime  to  have  done 
violence  to  a  bourgeois  in  his  own  domicile."  Every- 
body can  leave  the  country  when  he  pleases,  and  take 
all  the  money  he  pleases  with  him.  The  roads  are 
safe  day  and  night  even  for  a  man  traveling  alone. 
The  master  is   not   allowed   to   retain   a   domestic 


168  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

against  his  will.  Nobody  is  troubled  on  account  of 
bis  religion.  One  is  free  to  say  what  he  chooses, 
"even  of  the  magistrates,"  and  to  denounce  thera. 
Equality  is  fundamental.  "Those  who  hold  office 
obtain  consideration  rather  through  fair  dealing  than 
advance  themselves  over  others  by  a  proud  bearing." 
A  nation  like  this  cannot  fail  to  be  prosperous;  when 
man  is  both  just  and  energetic  the  rest  comes  to  him 
as  surplus.  At  the  beginning  of  the  War  of  Inde 
pendence  the  population  of  Amsterdam  was  70,000 ; 
in  1618  it  was  300,000.  The  Venetian  ambassadors 
reported  that  people  swarmed  in  the  streets  every 
hour  of  the  day  as  at  a  fair.  The  city  increased  two- 
thirds  ;  a  surface  equal  to  the  size  of  a  man's  foot 
was  worth  a  gold  ducat.  The  country  is  as  good  as 
the  city.  Nowhere  is  the  peasant  so  rich  and  so 
able  to  derive  advantage  from  the  soil;  one  village 
possesses  four  thousand  cows ;  an  ox  weighs  two 
thousand  pounds.  A  farmer  offers  his  daughter  to 
Prince  Maurice  with  a  dowry  of  one  hundred  thou- 
sand florins.  Nowhere  are  industrial  pursuits  and 
manufactures  so  perfect ;  cloths,  mirrors,  sugar-refin- 
eries, porcelain,  pottery,  rich  stutls  of  silk,  satin  and 


IN  THE  NETHERLANDS.  169 

brocacie,  iron- ware  and  ship-rigging.  They  snpply 
Europe  with  half  of  its  luxuries  and  nearly  all  its 
transportation.  A  thousand  vessels  traverse  the 
Baltic  in  quest  of  raw  material.  Eight  liundred 
boats  are  engaged  in  the  herring  fishery.  Yast  com- 
panies monopolize  trade  with  India,  China  and 
Japan ;  Batavia  is  the  centre  of  a  Dutch  empire  ;  at 
this  moment,  1609,  Holland  on  the  sea  and  in  tiie 
world  is  wdiat  England  was  in  the  time  of  Napoleon. 
She  has  a  marine  of  one  hundred  thousand  sailors  ;  in 
war  time  she  can  man  two  thousand  vessels;  fifty 
years  after  she  maintains  herself  against  the  com- 
bined fleets  of  France  and  England ;  year  after  year 
the  great  stream  of  her  success  and  prosperity  is 
seen  to  increase.  But  its  source  is  yet  more  bounti- 
ful than  the  stream  itself;  that  which  sustains  her  is 
an  excess  of  courage,  reason,  abnegation,  will  and 
genius;  "this  people,"  say  the  Venetian  ambassa- 
dors, "  are  inclined  to  labor  and  industry  to  such  a 
degree  that  no  enterprise  is  too  difficult  for  them  to 
succeed  in .  .  .  They  are  born  for  work  and  for  priva- 
tion, and  all  are  doing  something,  some  one  ^vay  and 
some   another."     Much    production    and   light   con- 


170  THE  niiLOSoriiY  of  aut 

sumption  is  tlie  mode  of  growth  of  public  prosperity 
The  poorest,  "in  their  small  and  humble  habita- 
tions," have  all  necessary  things.  The  richest  in 
their  fine  houses  avoid  the  superfluous  and  ostenta- 
tion; nobody  is  in  want,  and  nobody  abuses;  every 
one  is  employed  with  his  hands  or  his  mind.  "All 
things  are  made  profitable,"  says  Parival ;  "  there  are 
none,  even  to  those  who  gather  ordure  out  of  the 
canals  who  do  not  earn  half-a-crown  a  day.  Chil- 
dren even  who  are  learning  their  trades  almost  earn 
their  bread  at  the  start.  They  are  so  inimical  to  bad 
government  and  to  indolence  that  they  have  places 
in  which  the  magistrates  imprison  idlers  and  vaga- 
bonds, also  those  who  do  not  properly  attend  to 
their  business — the  complaints  of  wives  or  family 
relations  being  a  sufficient  warrant,  and  in  these 
places  they  are  obliged  to  work  and  earn  their  sub- 
sistence whether  they  will  or  not."  The  convents 
ire  transformed  into  hospitals,  asylums  and  homes 
for  orphans,  the  former  revenues  of  lazy  monks  sup- 
porting invalids,  the  aged,  and  widows  and  children 
of  soldiers  and  sailors  lost  in  war.  The  army  is  so 
efficient   that    any   of  its    soldiers   might   serve   as 


J/Y  TUE  NETHERLAKVIS.  171 

captain  in  an  Italian  army,  while  no  Italian  captain 
would  be  admitted  in  it  as  a  common  soldier.  In 
culture  and  instruction,  as  well  as  in  the  arts  of  or- 
ganization and  of  government,  the  Dutch  are  two 
centuries  ahead  of  the  rest  of  Europe.  Scarcely  a 
man,  woman  or  child  can  be  found  w^io  does  not 
know  how  to  read  and  write  (1609).  Every  village 
has  a  public  school.  In  a  bourgeois  family  all  the 
boys  read  Latin  and  all  the  girls  French.  Many 
people  write  and  converse  in  several  foreign  lan- 
guages. It  is  not  owing  to  simple  precaution,  to 
habits  of  laying  up  and  calculations  of  utility,  but 
they  appreciate  the  dignity  of  science.  Leyden,  to 
Avhich  the  States-General  propose  a  recompense,  after 
its  heroic  defense,  demands  a  University ;  no  pains  are 
spared  to  attract  to  it  the  greatest  savans  of  Europe. 
The  States  themselves  unite,  and  through  Henry  lY. 
cause  letters  to  be  sent  to  Scaliger,  who  is  poor  and 
a  professor,  begging  him  to  honor  the  city  with  his 
presence ;  no  lessons  will  be  required  of  him  ;  they 
merely  wish  him  to  come  and  converse  with  the  eru- 
dites, direct  their  efforts,  and  allow  the  nation  to 
participate  in  the  fame  of  his  writings.     Under  this 


172  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

regime  Leyden  becomes  the  most  renowned  schoo- 
in  Europe  ;  she  has  two  thousand  students  ;  philoso- 
phy hunted  out  of  France  finds  refuge  there  ;  during 
the  seventeenth  century  Holland  is  the  first  of 
thoughtful  countries.  The  positive  sciences  here 
find  their  native  soil,  or  the  land  of  their  adoption. 
Scaliger,  Justus  Lepsius,  Sauraaisius,  Meursius,  the 
two  Heinsius,  the  two  Dousa,  Marnix  de  Ste-Alde- 
gonde,  Hugo  Grotius  and  Snellius  preside  over 
learning,  laws,  physics  and  mathematics.  The  Elze- 
virs carry  on  printing.  Lindshoten  and  Mercator 
furnish  instruction  to  travellers  and  develop  geo- 
graphical science.  Hooft,  Bor  and  Meteren  write 
the  history  of  tlie  nation.  Jacob  Cats  provides 
its  poetry.  Theology,  which  is  the  philosophy  of 
the  day,  takes  up,  with  Arminius  and  Gomar,  the 
question  of  grace,  and,  even  in  the  smallest  villages, 
agitates  the  minds  of  peasants  and  bourgeois.  The 
Synod  of  Dordrecht  at  length  in  1609  constitutes 
the  oecumenical  council  of  the  Reformation.  To 
this  primacy  of  speculative  intellect  add  that  of 
practical  genius  :  from  Barnevelt  to  De  Witt,  from 
William  the  Taciturn  to  William  III.,  from  Heems- 


IN  TlfK  NI^TIIERLAXBS.  173 

kerck  the  admiral  to  Von  Troinp  and  De  Ruyter, 
a  sequence  of  superior  men  are  at  the  head  of  art 
and  business  matters.  It  is  under  these  circum- 
stances that  the  national  art  appears.  All  the 
great  original  painters  are  born  in  the  first  thirty 
years  of  the  seventeenth  century,  after  grave  danger 
had  passed  away,  when  the  final  victory  was  assured, 
when  man,  sensible  of  great  things  accomplished, 
points  out  to  his  children  the  onward  path  which 
has  been  cleared  by  his  vigorous  arm  and  stout 
heart.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  artist  is  the  offspring 
of  the  hero.  The  faculties  employed  in  the  creation 
of  a  real  world,  now  that  the  work  is  accomplished, 
reacli  beyond  and  are  employed  in  the  creation  of 
an  imaginary  world.  Man  has  done  too  much  to 
go  back  to  school ;  tlie  field  spread  out  before  him 
and  around  him  has  been  peopled  by  his  activity  ; 
it  is  so  sjlorious  and  so  fecund  he  can  Ioug:  dwell 
upon  and  admire  it ;  he  need  no  longer  subdue  his 
own  thought  to  a  foreign  thought;  he  seeks  and  dis- 
covers his  own  peculiar  sentiment ;  he  dares  to  con- 
fide himself  to  it,  to  pursue  it  to  the  end,  to  imitate 
nobody,  to  derive  all  from  himself,  to  invent  with  no 


174  THE  PHILOSOFHY  OF  ART 

other  guide  but  the  voiceless  preferences  of  his  own 
senses  and  his  own  affections.  His  inner  forces,  his 
fundamental  aptitudes,  his  primitive  and  hereditary 
instincts  drawn  out  and  fortified  by  experience  con- 
tinue to  operate  after  his  experience,  and,  when  they 
have  formed  a  nation  they  form  an  art. 

Let  us  consider  this  art.  It  manifests  through  col- 
ors and.  forms  all  the  instincts  that  have  just  ap- 
peared in  actions  and  in  works.  So  long  as  the 
seven  provinces  of  the  North  and  the  ten  provinces 
of  the  South  formed  but  one  nation  they  had  but  one 
school  of  art.  Engelbrecht,  Lucas  of  Leyden,  John 
Schoreel,  the  elder  Heemskerck,  Corneille  of  Harlem, 
Bloemaert  and  Goltzius  paint  in  the  same  style  as 
their  contemporaries  of  Bruges  and  Antwerp.  There 
is  not  as  yet  a  distinct  Dutch  school,  because  there  is 
not  as  yet  a  distinct  Belgian  school.  At  the  time 
when  the  War  of  Lidependence  begins  the  painters 
of  the  North  are  laboring  to  convert  themselves 
into  Italians  like  the  painters  of  the  South.  After 
the  year  1600,  however,  there  is  a  complete  change 
in  painting  as  in  other  things.  The  rising  sap  of  the 
nation  gives  predominance  to  the  national  instincts. 


IX  THE  XETHERLAXDS.  175 

Nudities  are  no  longer  visible  ;  the  ideal  figure,  the 
beautiful  human  animal  living  in  full  sunshine,  the 
noble  symmetry  of  limbs  and  attitude,  the  grand  al- 
legoric or  mythological  picture  is  no  longer  adapted 
to  Germanic  taste.  Galvanism,  moreover,  which  now 
rules,  excludes  it  from  its  temples,  and  amidst  this 
population  of  earnest  and  economic  laborers  there  is 
no  seigneurial  display,  no  widespread  and  grandiose 
epicureanism  which,  elsewhere,  in  the  palaces  and  in 
proximity  to  luxurious  silver,  liveries  and  furniture, 
demands  the  sensual  and  pagan  canvas.  Wlien 
Amelia  of  Solm  desires  to  raise  a  monument  in  this 
style  to  her  husband,  the  stadtholder  Frederic  Henry, 
she  is  obliged  to  send  to  Orangesaal  for  the  Flemish 
artists  Yan  Thulden  and  Jordaens.  To  these  real- 
istic imaginations  and  amidst  these  republican  cus- 
toms, in  this  land  where  a  shoemaking  privateer  can 
become  vice-admiral,  the  most  interesting  figure  is 
one  of  its  own  citizens,  a  man  of  flesh  and  blood,  not 
draped  or  undraped  like  a  Greek,  but  in  his  own  cos- 
tume and  ordinary  attitude,  some  good  magistrate 
or  valiant  officer.  The  heroic  style  is  suited  to  but 
one   thing,  the   great  portraits  which  decorate  the 


176  THE  PHILOSOPHT  OF  ART 

town-lialls  and  public  institutions  in  commemoration 
of  services  rendered.  We  see,  in  fact,  a  new  kind  of 
picture  make  its  appearance  here,  the  vast  canvas  on 
whicli  are  displayed  five,  ten,  twenty  and  thirty  full- 
length  portraits  as  large  as  life,  hospital  directors, 
arquebusiers  on  target  excursions,  syndics  assembled 
around  a  table,  ofiicers  ofiering  toasts  at  a  banquet, 
professors  giving  clinical  lectures,  all  grouped  ac- 
cording to  their  pursuits,  and  all  presented  to  view 
with  the  costume,  arms,  banners,  accessories  and 
surroundings  belonging  to  their  actual  life;  it  is  a 
veritable  historical  picture,  the  most  instructive  and 
most  impressive  of  all,  where  Franz  Hals,  Rembrandt, 
Govaert  Flinck,  Ferdinand  Bol,  Theodore  de  Keyser 
and  John  Ravenstein  depict  the  heroic  age  of  their 
nation,  where  sensible,  energetic  and  loyal  heads 
possess  the  nobleness  of  power  and  of  conscience, 
where  the  fine  costume  of  the  renaissance,  the  scarfs, 
the  buff  vests,  the  frills,  the  lace  collars,  the  pour- 
points  and  the  black  mantles  throw  their  gravity 
and  brilliancy  around  the  solid  portliness  of  the  stout 
forms  and  frank  expressions  of  the  faces,  where  the 
artist,   now   through    the    virile    simplicity   of    his 


7.y  THE  XUTHERLANDS.  177 

means,  now  through  the  strength  of  his  convictions, 
becomes  the  equal  of  his  heroes. 

Such  is  painting  for  the  public;  there  now  remains 
painting  for  private  life,  that  wliich  decorates  the 
houses  of  individuals,  and  which,  in  its  dimensions 
as  well  as  subjects,  conforms  to  the  condition  and 
character  of  its  purcliasers.  "There  is  no  bourgeois 
so  poor,"  says  Parival,  "  who  does  not  liberally  in- 
dulge his  taste  tliis  way."  A  baker  pays  six  hun- 
dred florins  for  a  single  figure  by  Van  der  Meer  of 
Delft.  This,  along  with  a  neat  and  agreeable  inte- 
rior, constitutes  their  luxury  ;  "they  do  not  grudge 
money  in  this  direction,  which  they  rather  save  on 
their  stomachs."  The  national  instinct  re-appears 
here  the  same  as  revealed  in  the  first  epoch  with 
John  Yan  Eyck,  Quintin  Matsys,  and  Lucas  of  Ley- 
den  ;  and  it  is  emphatically  the  national  instinct,  for 
it  is  so  deep  and  so  active  that,  even  in  Belgium,  in 
close  proximity  to  mythological  and  decor^ive  art, 
it  runs  through  the  Breughels  and  Teniers  like  a 
small  brook  alongside  of  a  broad  river.  It  exacts 
and  provokes  the  representation  of  man  as  he  is  and 
life  as  it  is,  both  as  the  eye  encounters  them,  citizens, 
8* 


ITS  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

peasants,  cattle,  shops,  taverns,  rooms,  streets  and 
landscapes.  There  is  no  need  to  transform  them  m 
order  to  ennoble  them ;  they  are  satisfied  if  they  are 
worthy  of  interest.  ISTature,  in  herself,  whatever  she 
may  be,  whether  human,  animal,  vegetable  or  inani- 
mate, with  all  her  irregularities,  minutiae  and  omis- 
sions, is  inherently  right,  and,  when  comprehended, 
people  love  and  delight  to  contemplate  her.  The 
object  of  art  is  not  to  change  her,  but  to  interpret 
her ;  through  sympathy  it  renders  her  beautiful. 
Thus  understood,  painting  may  represent  the  house- 
keeper S23inning  in  her  rural  cot,  the  carpenter  plan- 
ing on  his  work-bench,  the  surgeon  dressing  a  rustic's 
arm,  the  cook  spitting  a  chicken,  the  rich  dame 
washing  herself;  all  sorts  of  interiors,  from  the  hovel 
to  the  drawing-room ;  all  sorts  of  types,  from  the 
rubicund  visage  of  the  deep  drinker  to  the  placid 
smile  of  the  well-bred  damsel ;  every  scene  of  refined 
or  rustic  life — a  card-party  in  a  gilded  saloon,  a  peas- 
ant's carouse  in  a  bare  tavern,  skaters  on  a  frozen 
canal,  cows  drinking  from  a  trough,  vessels  at  sea, 
the  entire  and  infinite  diversities  of  sky,  earth,  water, 
darkness   and    daylight.      Terburg,    Metzu,   Gerard 


n    THE  NETHERLANDS.  179 

Dow,  V:in  der  Meer  of  Delft,  Adrian  Brouwer^ 
Schalcken,  Franz  Mieris,  Jan  Steen,  Wouvermau, 
the  two  Ostades,  Wyiiants,  Cuyp,  Van  der  Neer, 
Ruysdael,  Ilobbema,  Panl  Potter,  Backhuysen,  the 
two  Vanderveldes,  Philip  of  Kcenig,  Van  der  Heyden, 
and  how  many  more  !  There  is  no  school  in  which 
artists  of  original  talent  are  so  numerous.  When 
the  domain  of  art  consists,  not  of  a  small  summit, 
but  of  the  wide  expanse  of  life,  it  offers  to  each  mind 
a  distinct  field  ;  the  ideal  is  narrow,  and  inhabited 
only  by  two  or  three  geniuses  ;  the  real  is  immense, 
and  provides  places  for  fifty  men  of  talent.  A  tran- 
quil and  pleasing  harmony  emanates  from  all  these 
performances.  We  are  conscious  of  repose  in  look- 
ing at  them.  The  spirit  of  the  artist,  like  that  of  his 
figures,  is  in  equilibrium  ;  we  should  be  quite  content 
and  comfortable  in  his  picture.  We  realize  that  his 
imagination  does  not  go  beyond.  It  seems  as  if  he, 
like  his  personages,  were  satisfied  with  mere  living. 
Nature  appears  to  him  excellent ;  all  he  cares  for  is 
to  add  some  arrangement,  some  tone  side  by  side 
with  another,  some  effect  of  light,  some  choice  of 
attitude.     In  her  presence  he  is  like  a  happy-wedded 


180  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

Hollander  in  the  presence  of  his  spouse ;  he  would 
not  wish  her  otherwise  ;  he  loves  her  through  affec- 
tionate routine  and  innate  concordance  ;  at  the  ut- 
most his  chief  requirement  of  her  will  be  to  wear 
at  some  festival  her  red  frock  instead  of  the  blue 
one.  He  bears  no  resemblance  to  our  painters,  ex- 
pert observers  taught  by  a3Stlietic  and  philosophic 
books  and  journals,  who  depict  the  peasant  and  the 
laborer  the  same  as  the  Turk  and  the  Arab,  that  is 
to  say,  as  curious  animals  and  interesting  specimens  ; 
who  charge  their  landscapes  \vitli  the  subtleties,  re- 
finements and  emotions  of  poets  and  civilians  in  order 
to  rid  themselves  of  the  mute  and  dreamy  revery 
of  life.  He  is  of  a  more  naive  order  ;  he  is  not  dis- 
located oy  over-excited  by  excessive  cerebral  activ- 
ity  ;  as  compared  to  us  he  is  an  artizan  ;  when  he 
takes  up  painting  he  has  none  other  than  picturesque 
intentions ;  he  is  less  affected  by  unforeseen  and 
striking  detail  than  by  simple  and  leading  general 
traits.  His  work,  on  this  account,  healthier  and  less 
poignant,  appeals  to  less  cultivated  natures,  and 
pleases  the  greater  number.  Among  all  these  puint- 
ers,  two    only — Ruysdael,  in    spiritual    finesse   and 


IjH  the  NETHERLAXDS.  181 

marked  superiority  of  education,  and  Rembrandt 
especially,  in  a  peculiar  structure  of  the  eye  and  a 
wonderfully  wild  genius — developed,  beyond  their 
age  and  nation,  up  to  tlie  common  instincts  wliicli 
bind  the  Germanic  nations  together  and  pave  tlie 
way  for  modern  sentiments.  Tlie  latter,  constantly 
collecting  his  materials,  living  in  solitude  and  borne 
along  by  the  growth  of  an  extraordinary  faculty, 
lived,  like  our  Balzac,  a  magician  and  a  visionary  in 
a  world  fashioned  by  his  own  hand  and  of  which  he 
alone  possessed  the  key.  Superior  to  all  painters  in 
the  native  delicacy  and  keenness  of  his  optical  per- 
ceptions, he  comprehended  this  truth  and  adhered  to 
it  in  all  its  consequences  that,  to  the  eye,  the  essence 
of  a  visible  object  consists  of  the  spot  (tache),  that 
the  simplest  color  is  infinitely  complex,  that  every 
visual  sensation  is  the  product  of  its  elements 
coupled  with  its  surroundings,  that  each  object  on 
the  field  of  sight  is  but  a  single  spot  modified  by 
others,  and  that,  in  this  wise,  the  principal  feature 
of  a  picture  is  the  ever-present,  tremulous,  colored 
atmosphere  into  which  figures  are  plunged  like  fishes 
in  the  sea.      He  rendered  this  atmosphere  palpable. 


182  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  APT 

and  revealed  to  us  its  mysterious  and  thronging  poi> 
ulation  ;  he  impregnated  it  with  the  light  of  his  own 
country — a  feeble,  yellow  illumination  like  that  of  a 
lamp  in  a  cellar ;  he  felt  the  mournful  struggle 
between  it  and  shadow,  the  weakness  of  vanishing 
rays  dying  away  in  gloom,  the  tremulousness  of  re- 
flections vainly  clinging  to  gleaming  walls,  the  sum 
of  that  vague  multitude  of  half-darks  which,  invisible 
to  ordinary  gaze,  seem  in  his  paintings  and  etchings 
to  form  a  submarine  world  dimly  visible  through  an 
abyss  of  waters.  On  emerging  from  this  obscurity 
the  full  light,  to  his  eyes,  proved  a  dazzling  shower ; 
he  felt  as  if  it  were  flashes  of  lightning,  or  some 
magical  efi'idgence,  or  as  myriads  of  beaming  darts. 
He  found  accordingly,  in  the  inanimate  world  the 
completest  and  most  expressive  drama,  all  contrasts 
and  all  conflicts,  whatever  is  overwhelming  and  pain- 
fully lugubrious  in  night,  whatever  is  most  fleeting 
and  saddest  in  ambiguous  shadow,  whatever  is  most 
violent  and  most  irresistible  in  the  irruption  of  day- 
light. This  done,  all  that  remained  was  to  impose 
the  human  drama  on  the  natural  drama;  a  stage 
thus  fasliioned  indicates  of  itself  its  own  characters. 


I^  THE  NETHERLANDS.  183 

The  Greeks  and  Italians  had  known  of  man  and 
of  life  only  the  straightest  and  tallest  stems,  the 
healthy  flower  blooming  in  sunshine ;  he  saw  the 
root,  everything  which  crawls  and  moulders  in 
shadow,  the  stunted  and  deformed  sprouts,  the 
obscure  crowd  of  the  poor,  the  Jewry  of  Amster- 
dam, the  slimy,  suffering  populace  of  a  large  city 
and  unfavorable  climate,  the  bandy-legged  beggar, 
the  bloated  idiot,  the  bald  skull  of  an  exhausted 
craftsman,  the  pallid  features  of  the  sick,  the  whole 
of  that  grovelling  array  of  evil  passions  and  hideous 
miseries  which  infest  our  various  civilizations  like 
Avorms  in  a  rotten  plank.  Once  on  this  road  he 
could  comprehend  the  religion  of  grief,  the  genuine 
Christianity ;  he  could  interpret  the  Bible  as  if  he 
were  a  Lollard ;  he  could  recognize  the  eternal  Christ 
as  present  now  as  formerly,  as  living  in  a  cellar  or 
tavern  of  Holland  as  beneath  a  Jerusalem  sun ;  the 
healer  and  consoler  of  the  miserable,  alone  capable 
of  saving  them  because  as  poor  and  as  miserable  as 
themselves.  He  too,  through  a  reaction,  was  con- 
scious of  pity ;  by  the  side  of  others  who  seem 
painters  of  the  aristocracy  he  is  of  the  people ;  he 


181:  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART 

is,  at  least,  the  most  humane;  his  broader  sympa 
tliies  embrace  more  of  nature  fundamentally ;  no 
ugliness  repels  him,  no  craving  for  joyousness  or 
nobleness  hides  from  him  the  lowest  depths  of  truth. 
Hence  it  is  that,  free  of  all  trammels  and  guided  by 
the  keen  sensibility  of  his  organs,  he  has  succeeded 
in  portraying  in  man  not  merely  the  general  struc- 
ture and  the  abstract  type  which  answers  for  classic 
art,  but  again  that  which  is  peculiar  and  profound 
in  the  individual,  the  infinite  and  indefinable  com- 
plications of  the  moral  being,  the  whole  of  that 
changeable  imprint  which  concentrates  instantane- 
ously on  a  face  the  entire  history  of  a  soul  and 
Avhich  Shakespeare  alone  saw  with  an  equally  prodi- 
gious lucidity.  In  this  respect  he  is  the  most  origi- 
nal of  modern  artists,  and  forges  one  end  of  the 
chain  of  which  the  Greeks  forged  the  other;  the 
rest  of  the  masters,  Florentine,  Venetian  and  Flem- 
ish, stand  between  them;  and  when,  nowadays,  our 
over-excited  sensibility,  our  extravagant  curiosity  in 
the  pursuit  of  subtleties,  our  misparing  search  of 
the  true,  our  divination  of  the  remote  and  the 
obscure  in  human  nature,  seeks  for  predecessors  and 


I^r  THE  NETHERLANDS.  185 

masters,  it  is  in  him  and  in  Shakespeare  that  Balzac 
and  Dekicroix  are  able  to  find  them. 

A  blooming  period  like  this  is  transient  for  the 
reason  that  the  sap  which  produces  it  is  exhausted 
by  its  production.  Towards  1667,  after  the  naval 
defeats  of  England,  slight  indications  show  the 
growing  change  in  the  manners,  customs  and  senti- 
ments which  had  stimulated  the  national  art.  Tlio 
prosperity  is  too  great.  Already,  in  1660,  Parival, 
speaking  of  tliis,  grows  ecstatic  in  every  chapter ; 
the  companies  of  the  East  and  West  Indies  declare 
dividends  to  their  stockholders  of  forty  and  fifty  per 
cent.  Heroes  become  citizens;  Parival  notices  the 
thirst  for  gain  among  those  of  the  highest  class. 
And  more,  "  they  detest  duels,  contentions  and  quar- 
rels, and  commonly  assert  that  Avell-off  people  never 
fight."  They  want  to  enjoy  themselves,  and  the 
houses  of  the  great,  which  the  Venetian  ambassadors 
early  in  the  century  find  so  bare  and  so  simple,  be- 
come luxurious;  among  the  leading  citizens  there 
are  found  tapestries,  high-priced  pictures  and  "  gold 
and  silver-plate."  The  rich  interiors  of  Terburg  and 
Metzu   show  us  the  new-found   elegance — the  light 


186  THE  PIIILOSOPUT  OF  ART 

silk  dresses,  velvet  bodices,  the  gems,  the  pearls, 
the  liangings  honey-combed  with  gold,  and  the  lofty 
chimneys  with  marble  columns.  Ancient  energy 
relaxes.  When  Louis  XIV.  invades  the  country  in 
1672  he  finds  no  resistance.  The  army  has  been 
neglected ;  their  troops  are  disbanded ;  their  towns 
surrender  at  the  first  blow;  four  French  cavaliers 
take  Muyden  which  is  the  key  to  the  floodgates ;  the 
States-General  implore  peace  on  any  terms.  The 
national  sentiment  degenerates,  at  the  same  time,  in 
the  arts.  Taste  becomes  transformed.  Rembrandt 
in  1669  dies  poor,  almost  without  anybody's  knowl- 
edge ;  the  new-found  luxury  is  satisfied  with  foreign 
models  obtained  from  France  and  Italy.  Already, 
during  the  most  flourishing  epoch,  a  number  of  paint- 
ers had  gone  to  Rome  to  paint  small  figures  and 
landscapes ;  Jan  Both,  Berghem,  Karl  Dujardin,  and 
many  others — Wouvermans  himself— form  a  half-Ital- 
ian school  alongside  of  the  national  school.  But 
this  school  was  spontaneous  and  natural ;  amid  the 
mountains,  ruins,  structures  and  rags  of  the  South 
the  vapory  whiteness  of  the  atmos23here,  the  genial- 
ity of  the  figures,  the  mellow  carnations,  the  gayety 


m  THE  NETHERLANDS.  187 

and  good  Immor  of  tlie  painter  denote  tlie  persist- 
ency and  freedom  of  the  Dutch  instinct.  On  the 
other  hand,  we  see  at  this  moment  this  instinct  be- 
coming enfeebled  under  tlie  invasion  of  fashion.  On 
the  Kaisergracht  and  the  Heeregracht  rise  grand 
hotels  in  the  style  of  Louis  XIV.,  while  the  Flemish 
painter  who  founded  the  academic  school,  Gerard  de 
Lairesse,  comes  to  decorate  them  with  his  learned 
allegories  and  hybrid  mythologies.  The  national 
art,  it  is  true,  does  not  at  once  surrender ;  it  is  pro- 
longed by  a  succession  of  masterpieces  up  to  the 
first  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  ;  at  the  same 
time  the  national  sentiment,  aroused  by  humiliation 
and  danger,  excites  a  popular  revolution,  heroic 
sacrifices,  the  inundation  of  the  country,  and  all  the 
successes  which  afterwards  ensue.  But  these  very 
successes  complete  the  ruin  of  the  energy  and  enthu- 
siasm which  this  temporary  revival  had  stimulated. 
During  the  whole  of  the  war  of  the  Spanish  succes- 
sion, Holland,  whose  stadtholder  became  King  of 
England,  is  sacrificed  to  its  ally ;  after  the  treaty  of 
1713  she  loses  her  maritime  supremacy,  falls  to  the 
second    rank  of  powers,    and,    finally,    still    lower ; 


188  THE  PIIILOSOPIIT  OF  ART 

Frederic  the  Great  is  soon  able  to  say  that  she  is 
dragged  in  the  wake  of  England  like  a  sloop  behind 
a  man-of-war.  France  tramples  on  her  during  the 
war  of  the  Austrian  succession ;  later,  England  im- 
poses on  her  the  right  of  search  and  deprives  her  of 
the  coast  of  Coromandel.  Finally,  Prussia  steps  in, 
overwhelms  the  republican  party  and  establishes  the 
stadtholdership.  Like  all  the  weak  she  is  hustled 
by  the  strong,  and,  after  1789,  conquered  and  recon- 
quered. AVhat  is  worse  she  gives  up  and  is  content 
to  remain  a  good  commercial  banking-house.  Al- 
ready in  1723  her  historian,  John  Leclerc,  a  refugee, 
openly  ridicules  the  valiant  seamen  who,  during  the 
War  of  Independence,  blew  themselves  up  rather 
than  strike  their  flag.*  In  1732,  another  historian  de- 
clares that  "  the  Dutch  think  of  nothing  but  the  ac- 
cumulation of  riches."  After  1748  both  the  army 
and  the  fleet  are  allowed  to  decline.  In  1787  the 
Duke  of  Brunswick  brings  the  country  under  subjec- 
tion almost  without  striking  a  blow.  What  a  dis- 
tance between  sentiments  of  this  cast  and  those  of 

♦  "  This  good  captain  belonged  to  (hose  who  die  for  fear  of  dying.    If 
God  fori?ives  ench  people  it  is  because  they  are  out  of  their  mind." 


ly  THE  NETHERLANDS.  ISO 

the  companions  of  William  the  Taciturn,  Dc  Riiyter 
and  Von  Tromp  !  Hence  it  is  that,  through  an  ad- 
mirable concordance,  we  see  picturesque  invention 
terminating  with  practical  energy.  In  ten  years 
after  the  commencement  of  the  eighteenth  century 
all  the  great  painters  are  dead.  Already  for  a  gQw- 
ei-ation  a  decline  is  manifest  in  the  impoverished 
style,  in  the  more  limited  imagination  and  in  more 
minute  finish  of  Franz  Mieris,  Schalcken,  and  the  rest. 
One  of  these,  Adrian  Van  der  Werf,  in  his  cold  and 
polished  painting,  his  mythologies  and  nudities,  his 
ivory  carnations,  his  impotent  return  to  the  Italian 
style,  bears  witness  to  the  Dutch  oblivion  of  native 
tastes  and  its  own  peculiar  genius.  His  successors 
resemble  men  who  attempt  to  speak  with  nothing 
to  say ;  brought  up  by  mawters  or  famous  parents, 
Peter  Van  der  Werf,  Henry  Van  Limborch,  Philip 
Van  Dyck,  Mieris  the  younger,  and  another  the 
grandson,  Nicholas  Verkolie,  and  Constantine  Nets- 
cher  repeat  sentences  they  have  heard,  but  like  au- 
tomatons. Talent  survives  only  among  painters  of 
accessories  and  flowers — Jacques  de  Witt,  Rachel 
Ruysch  and  Van  Huysum — in   a  small  way,  which 


190 


ABT  in  THE  NETHERLANDS. 


requires  less  invention  and  wliicli  still  lasts  a  few 
years,  similar  to  a  tenacious  clump  of  bushes  on  a 
dry  soil  whereon  all  the  great  trees  have  died.  This 
dies  in  its  turn,  and  the  ground  remains  vacant.  It 
is  the  last  evidence  of  the  dependence  which  attaches 
individual  originality  to  social  life,  and  proportions 
the  inventive  faculties  of  the  artist  to  the  active 
energies  of  the  nation. 


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